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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HINTS 



ON 



TEACHING CIVICS 



BY 
I? T-T A/T 



GEORGE H/MARTIN, A.M. 

Supervisor Public Schools, Boston, Mas*. 




HIj 



OV^ 



SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

New York BOSTON Chicago 

1896 



Copyright, 1896, 
By Silver, Burdbtt and Company. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS. 



BERWICK * SMITH, PRINTERS, BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



It is the purpose of the author in preparing these 
" Hints " to enrich the content of the instruction in 
civics. The study of civil government is properly a 
department of ethics, and unless considered ethically, is 
essentially barren. 

The city boy soon enough and easily enough becomes 
acquainted with the facts of municipal administration, 
— what offices there are, what salaries they carry, and 
how they are filled. What he is not likely to learn, un- 
less the school teaches it, is the moral aspect of all civil 
functions, the right and wrong of them. 

In all these matters false standards are so common, 
moral distinctions have become so confused by custom, 
that unless the truth is apprehended clearly before self- 
ish interests blur the vision, unless right principles are 
early instilled, the young man is likely to come into his 
heritage of citizenship morally handicapped, and society 
is sure to suffer thereby. 

Those universal principles of fairness which underlie 
all righteous law appeal with peculiar force to boys, are 
indeed inwrought by them into all their organizations. 
There is a fascinating monograph in the Johns Hopkins 
Studies in Political Science, 2d Series, No. XL, entitled 
" Rudimentary Society among Boys." Teachers of civics 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

might profitably make similar studies among their own 
boys, and use the results to illustrate their teaching. 

The training which the kind of work suggested by 
this little book will afford is of the best. Instead of 
imposing upon the pupils the judgments of others, it 
stimulates them to form their own conclusions, and so 
develops a sense of manliness which is the best founda- 
tion for good citizenship. 

On the historical side, too, there is an attempt to sug- 
gest relations by which a sense of historical perspective 
may be awakened and stimulated. The absence of this 
is now the most serious defect in the school study of 
history. 

That the reflex action on the teacher himself may be 
healthful is the hope of 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

General Plan and Method 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Principles of Local Government n 

CHAPTER III. 

The State Government : Legislative Department .... 17 

chapter IV. 
The State Government: Judicial Department 26 

chapter v. 
The State Government: Executive Department; The Con- 
stitution 36 

CHAPTER VI. 

The National Government 43 

CHAPTER VII. 

Summary: Topical Outline , • . . 51 

chapter viii. 
Voting 55 

chapter IX. 

Taxes 60 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

Office-Holding 65 

CHAPTER XI. 

Anarchy and Liberty 71 

CHAPTER XII. 

Taxation without Representation 78 

CHAPTER XIII. 

New Standards of Patriotic Citizenship 88 



HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL PLAN AND METHOD. 

Good citizenship must be at its foundation intelli- 
gent citizenship. Patriotism, if it is to be more than 
a shallow sentiment, must be based on knowledge. If 
patriotic citizenship is to characterize the American 
people, there must be more than general intelligence ; 
there must be special intelligence along the line of 
civic relations and responsibilities. 

To provide such intelligence must become a recog- 
nized function of the elementary schools. Too few of 
the people enjoy high-school opportunities to make it 
safe to leave to these schools all instruction in civics, 
as is now done in so many States. 

Both reason and experience teach that all that is fun- 
damental in principle, as well as all that is essential in 
practice, may be taught in the graded schools of the 
towns, and in the rural schools, with interest and profit, 
if only the right means are used. 

The plans and methods which follow have been worked 
out in practice, and can be used, with proper local adap- 

7 



8 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

tations, in any part of our country. They can, of course, 
be used to the best advantage as supplementary to a 
good text-book. 

The New England town-meeting presents the idea of 
popular government in its simplest concrete form, and 
has been selected for illustration ; but in whatever unit 
the people come together to act directly upon matters 
of civil polity, the same principles are at work in a 
similar way. 

PLAN. 

Two familiar educational principles will guide us in 
our plan. First, distinguish between what is elemen- 
tary and what is scientific ; second, work from the well 
known to the less known. Following the first, we 
divide the work into three parts : (i) Facts; (2) Princi- 
ples; (3) Causes. 

Following the second, we divide again : (1) The local 
government, — town, city, school-district ; (2) The State 
government ; (3) The National government. The rea- 
son for this order is obvious. The national government 
is as much a reality as any other : it is present every- 
where ; it surrounds us all. But it is present as the 
atmosphere is, as Providence is, — beneficent, but in- 
visible. The local government is a tangible reality. 
Few of the children will ever see a king or a president ; 
but at every election they can see the sovereign on his 
throne, and can hear him issue his decrees, and they 
can see the operations of government going on all 
around. The school itself is an illustration. 

The facts of government in each division, town, State, 
Nation, may be taught under the following topics : — 



GENERAL PLAN AND METHOD. 9 

1. What officers are chosen ? 

2. By whom are they chosen ? 

3. When and how are they chosen ? 

4. For what are they chosen ? 

In the State and National governments, these four 
questions will be asked about each of the three depart- 
ments, — legislative, executive, and judicial. 

Following a study of the facts in each division may 
come a discussion of the principles underlying the sys- 
tem, beginning with those elementary and universal 
ones on which all government rests, and afterward 
introducing successively the special ones applied in 
the various departments of the State and Nation. 

METHOD. 

The work may profitably begin just after the annual 
meeting, and be conducted as a general exercise. Get 
from the pupils a description of the meeting, — who 
were present, what they did, how they did it. Select 
the facts which you want to use, and make notes of 
them on the blackboard. These facts may be classified 
as follows : First, officers were chosen ; make list of them 
on board and slates. Second, money was voted for 
certain purposes ; note what purposes, — roads, schools, 
etc. Third, the people voted to do certain things, — to 
build a schoolhouse, lay out a road ; note these. Fourth, 
reports were received from officers chosen last year. 
This covers the work of the meeting. 

Consider next the choice of officers. First, by whom ? 
Allow the pupils to tell what they know of the required 
qualifications for voting ; add what they omit, writing 



IO HINTS OX TEACHING CIVICS. 

the whole list carefully on board, and requiring the 
pupils to copy it and commit it. 

Next, have the mode of choice described minutely. 
Obtain from some one interested copies of the ballots 
used, and show them to the pupils. Notice and explain 
the use of the check-list. 

The work of these officers, at least the most impor- 
tant functions, may now be studied. Many of these 
are already familiar, and the pupils may be encour- 
aged to learn more from the officers themselves. The 
teacher should get and keep copies of official papers 
issued by the different officers, as these illustrate the 
duties. Among these are the attested copies of the 
town-meeting warrants, which may be taken after 
the meeting has dissolved ; copies of voting-lists ; 
offers of rewards for detection of criminals ; proposals 
for contracts ; blank licenses ; notices of assessors and 
collectors ; certificates of measures of wood, etc. The 
printed report of the town officers will also give im- 
portant information on this topic. The method of 
assessing and collecting taxes needs to be worked out 
with care. An admirable exercise would consist in 
actually making a nominal valuation of each pupil's 
school property, and assessing a proportional tax upon 
it. If some of the pupils did the work, the arithmetical 
practice would have value. 

These hints are enough to indicate what may be done 
with the facts of the local government. 



PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. II 



CHAPTER II. 

PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 

In the preceding chapter a mode of teaching the facts 
of local government was presented. In this we shall 
consider the principles underlying such government ; 
and, in doing so, we shall find that we have unfolded 
the principles lying at the foundation of all civil gov- 
ernment. 

Public Convenience. — Call the attention of the class 
to some private way with which they are familiar, as 
the road by which a neighbor gets to his pasture or 
his mill or his stable or his warehouse. Who made 
it ? Mr. B. Who takes care of it ? Mr. B. For what 
purpose ? For his own use. In a similar way con- 
sider the road in front of the schoolhouse, and, by 
questions, develop the idea public in distinction from 
private. Call for further illustrations, — the town- 
house or city hall, the waterworks, the hayscales, the 
fire-engine, etc. From all these, teach that the town, 
or city or village, as such, looks after matters of public 
convenience. 

Public Welfare, — The health officers have enforced 
some sanitary regulation, as vaccination, drainage, etc. 
Lead the class to see that this act is not to preserve the 
health of the individual alone, or his family alone, but to 
preserve the health of the community. Thus excite the 



12 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

idea of a public good in distinction from individual good, 
and also in distinction from public convenience. In this 
connection discuss the public school, showing the bene- 
fits of education, and the obligations which the edu- 
cated are under to use their advantages for the public 
good. Having taught these two ideas, — public con- 
venience and public welfare, — direct the attention to 
some other features of the local government, as the 
public library, the public burial-ground, the public park, 
the lighting of streets, the erection of soldiers' monu- 
ments, the care of the poor ; and secure a classifying of 
these under the two general ideas. 

The Public Will. — Who says that these things shall 
be done ? Who says how much money shall be spent 
for them ? Starting with such questions, take the class 
back to the town-meeting, and find with them that these 
measures for the public convenience and the public good 
are not determined by any one man, but they express 
the will of the people who are to be benefited by them. 
Thus reach the idea of a public will, active in determin- 
ing and directing public measures for public ends. How 
is this will expressed ? Is everybody consulted ? Do 
they all agree ? The story of the town-meetings an- 
swers these questions. Only those who attended the 
meeting had an opportunity to say what they would 
have done, — the legal voters. And these did not 
agree. Mr. A wanted $2,000 spent on the roads ; 
Mr. B wanted $3,000 spent. Discussion arose ; sides 
were taken ; some agreed with A, some with B. What 
was done ? The boys know. A vote was taken. Let 
them tell how, and with what result. Twenty wanted 



PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 1 3 

$3,000 spent, and fifty wanted $2,000. How much 
was spent ? $2,000. Why ? Because more wanted 
that sum than the other. In some such way we may 
come to the principles that the public will is expressed 
by voting, and is determined by the vote of a majority. 
We may show that the same mode is used when the 
will is expressed by a selected body, as a city council, 
or board. Teach that, on the whole, this is the most 
convenient and the fairest way. We should be careful 
to emphasize the fact that rule by majorities is based 
on expediency rather than on abstract justice and right. 
The minority may be right and the majority wrong ; 
but the submission of the minority is better than con- 
fusion and strife. The minority is to be respected, 
however ; superiority of numbers is no excuse for 
tyranny. 

Office-holding. — What is its nature ? This question 
has been warmly discussed on the side of theory, and 
disastrously answered on the side of practice. But, if 
we study it in the light of the principles already taught, 
it seems clear enough. Why are these local officers 
chosen whose duties we have been studying ? Ask the 
boy why the voters who said that $2,000 should be 
spent on the roads chose some highw r ay officers. He 
will tell you, — for the public convenience. The work 
could not be done by all. One or a few must do it. 
The officers are chosen to carry out the public will 
for the public convenience and welfare. They are not 
to serve themselves, but the public. Offices are not 
gifts to be distributed equally, nor spoils to be seized 
by the majority. They are trusts to be committed with 



14 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

discrimination, to be accepted, if need be, at a personal 
sacrifice, and to be administered faithfully. The value 
of experience in these offices may be noticed, and the 
waste involved in frequent changes. Though the per- 
sons elected to office are the immediate choice of only 
a majority (or plurality) of the voters, they are the 
servants of the whole public, — not of a fraction of it. 
A voter has no personal claim, on account of his vote, 
on the officers whom he helped to elect. 

Further on, these principles may be shown to apply 
as well to the higher officers who direct, as to those 
who only execute. They may be taught to the boys 
of twelve years more easily than to the average mem- 
ber of Congress. 

Duties of Citizens. — For what purpose is the town- 
meeting held ? Beginning with this question, we may 
teach that the people are called together to discuss 
measures for the public convenience and welfare, and 
to say what shall be done. In these decisions all are 
interested. The more knowledge and good sense 
brought to bear upon them the better for all ; hence, 
the duty of every voter to be present, and help in the 
discussion and settlement. There is urgent need of 
teaching that every voter should vote. How should 
he vote ? After consideration and discussion ; that is, 
intelligently. Not as others do, because they do, but 
independently; not according to prejudice nor pique 
nor personal favor nor mere self-interest, but conscien- 
tiously. Discuss here the buying and selling of votes. 
We might show the duty of those members of the 
community who cannot vote, to use all the means 



PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 1 5 

of influence at their command to promote the pub- 
lic good. 

There is another duty not less important. We have 
found that the money spent on the roads is for the pub- 
lic. Who furnishes the money ? The public. How ? 
By the payment of taxes. Lead the class to see that 
since all the people share in the good done with the 
money, all should share as they are able in the pay- 
ment. If one fails to pay his share, the others must 
pay more ; so that a man who in any way evades tax- 
ation robs his neighbor as truly as a burglar or a high- 
wayman robs his victim. Dwell upon the meanness as 
well as the wickedness of such evasion. Show, too, 
that taxes should not only be paid honestly, but cheer- 
fully ; that a person ought to find satisfaction and en- 
joyment in contributing to the public good. By means 
of such teaching we may help to develop public-spirited 
citizens, — a class now none too numerous. 

Public Property. — These lessons will prepare the 
children to see a distinction between public and private 
property. Though each citizen may use the school- 
house or the town-house, they are not his. He does 
not own one-tenth nor one-hundredth of them. They 
belong to the public, and he should treat them as he 
would treat the private property of another. Here the 
teacher may find opportunity to speak of the common 
habit of defacing public buildings with the names of 
visitors. 

Such seem to be the most obvious principles under- 
lying the various forms of local government in the 
United States. Treated in a simple, conversational 



1 6 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

way, and illustrated freely by familiar matters, they 
could hardly fail to interest the boys and girls of the 
grammar schools ; and, simple as they are, if wrought 
into the texture of our political society, would add much 
to its strength and beauty. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT iy 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 
LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

In the preceding chapters we have studied the facts 
and principles of the local governments as they exist in 
the United States. We come next to the facts of the 
State governments. The same question will guide us 
as before. What officers ? By whom, when, how, and 
for what purpose chosen ? As the pupils are less famil- 
iar with these facts, more of the information will need 
to be directly given. If we begin soon after the annual 
State election, we shall have the interest awakened by 
that event as a stimulus in the work. 

The people have come together again in public meet- 
ing. By questions, we shall find that the only work 
done has been voting ; and we have the list of officers 
voted for on the ballot, copies of which may be obtained 
by the teacher for this purpose. We find, too, that the 
same classes of persons voted as in the choice of local 
officers. Note the date of the election. We select from 
the list two for present study, — the members of the 
State Legislature. The division of the State into dis- 
tricts is noticed, and the choice of two bodies of men, 
the name of each body, and of the two together. To 
answer the question, for what these men are chosen, 



1 8 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

we read from the published Acts of the Legislature. 
For example, we find the following : " No portable 
seats shall be allowed in the aisles or passageways of 
any public building during any service or entertainment 
held therein." Who says this? The Legislature. To 
whom ? To all the people of the State. What right 
have they to say it ? The people of the State have 
chosen them for this purpose. This, therefore, ex- 
presses the will of the people of the whole State. 
Here is a new public, larger and higher than the 
local public. Teach that the expression of this new 
will is a law. Compare it in its scope with the votes 
passed at the town-meeting. Having carefully devel- 
oped this idea, we may proceed to illustrate it fully 
from the general laws of the State. 

The next series of facts to teach are those concern- 
ing the way in which the laws are made. The news- 
papers published at the State capital will be of great 
service in this part of the work. The organization of 
each House is usually described in detail, and in connec- 
tion with the reading the duties of the various offices 
may be explained. The appointment and work of com- 
mittees follow. During the session of the Legislature 
the papers will contain a daily report of the proceedings ; 
and the teacher may be able to follow with the class 
any single measure, from its introduction by petition or 
otherwise, through its committal, its hearings, its report, 
its readings, its debates, its amendments or re-commit- 
tals, its passage or rejection, its approval by the gover- 
nor or its veto, and the subsequent action on it. The 
interest of the pupils may be kept up by assigning par- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT 1 9 

ticular measures to different ones, and requiring each to 
keep track of and report the progress of his own. The 
order and meaning of the steps in legislation may thus 
be taught, and at the same time the pupils be trained to 
read a newspaper intelligently and for an object. The 
teacher should be supplied with the following means of 
illustration : A copy of the General Laws, a copy of the 
annual Acts, copies of bills in their various stages, a 
copy of the Manual prepared for the use of the mem- 
bers, a complete file of newspapers containing the 
reports for the session. The bills and the Manual may 
be obtained from members of either House. Old ones 
will answer the purpose. 

Principles of State Government. — Before studying 
the facts concerning the other department of the State 
government, we need to unfold the principles underlying 
the legislative department. We teach, first : — 

The Necessity of Laws. — In almost every daily news- 
paper we shall find such items as these : A man is shot 
and killed in a brawl ; another is assaulted ; a house is 
entered, and property stolen. From these or similar 
facts we may teach that there are in the community 
persons disposed to injure their neighbors. As long as 
this is true, people cannot live in peace, because no one 
knows but he may be the next victim. Thus the act 
not only injures the individual, but affects the whole 
community. The injured person or his friends might 
retaliate ; but this would only increase the disturbance, 
and leave the weak always at the mercy of the strong. 
So it becomes necessary that the people together shall 
say that such things shall not be done ; that is, to make 



20 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

laws forbidding them. This prepares us to consider the 
whole subject of — 

Natural Rights. — Why is the killing wrong ? Be- 
cause the man had a right to live. Why was the theft 
wrong ? Because the man had a right to his own prop- 
erty. 

Teach that men instinctively exercise these rights, 
and so they are called natural rights. Searching the 
newspapers for further illustrations, we shall find such 
facts as these : A railroad train is wrecked, or a factory 
burned, and lives lost for want of proper precautions, 
showing that the people may suffer from the negligence, 
as well as from the malice, of others. A dealer sells 
unwholesome meat, and endangers the health of his 
customers. A man utters a falsehood maliciously con- 
cerning another, and injures his reputation. A child 
is carried away and held by those who have no right 
to do so, and the right of personal liberty is violated. 
Thus, by directing attention to the violations, we may 
teach the great comprehensive rights of personal secu- 
rity, personal liberty, and private property, and also the 
special forms which these rights include. Having done 
this, we may find abundant illustrations showing the 
great variety of ways in which each of those rights 
may be violated. Then we may go to the general laws ; 
and the pupil will be prepared to understand why there 
are so many, and why they are so minute, and he will 
also see the reason for the two classes of laws, — those 
commanding what is right, like one requiring corpora- 
tions to care for the safety of the public, and those 
forbidding what is wrong. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 21 

Limitations of Natural Rights. — In our teaching of 
natural rights, it is necessary to guard against an idea 
which some of the subjects of foreign despotisms bring 
with them when they immigrate. We must teach that 
liberty is not license. By illustrations we may show that 
each of the natural rights is limited by a regard for the 
rights of others. " Live and let live " is a principle of 
government as well as a maxim of trade. We may ask 
the pupils why, if they have the right of personal liberty, 
they are forbidden to cross some man's land. They 
would see that if they exercised their right to go and 
come as they pleased, they would violate that man's 
right of property. So a man has a right to make gun- 
powder, but he must not make it where it will endan- 
ger the lives or property of others. Thus a great many 
things that a man might do if he lived alone, he cannot 
do when he is surrounded by neighbors ; and the closer 
the neighbors the more he is restricted. In the country 
a man may build his house of any material he pleases, 
but in the city he must not build of wood. 

There is a further limitation to be taught. Each 
man has a right to his property ; but he cannot keep 
it all, — some of it is taken away in taxes. Why ? 
Because those measures for the general good, of 
which we have spoken, require money ; and the right 
of the individual must give way before the necessities 
of the whole community. A new street is laid out, 
and the land of private owners is taken. Do they 
consent ? Their consent is not asked. If the pub- 
lic good requires the street, the individual preference 
or convenience must yield ; but the owners are paid 



22 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

for their land. Thus we present the idea of eminent 
domain. 

And not only is the right of property thus limited, 
but the right of security. By the story of the last war 
we may lead the pupils to see that when the community 
is in danger, the citizen's body, health, and life must be 
at the public service. 

In this connection we might teach that when a man 
violates the rights of others, he forfeits his own. We 
may find illustrations in the newspapers. Such are the 
punishments of crime by fine and imprisonment ; of 
murder by loss of life ; of rebellion by exile. 

After the presentation of this subject of natural 
rights we are prepared to show — 

The Objects of Laws. — The purpose for which the 
people have expressed their will through the Legislature 
is, primarily, to protect. We should emphasize the fact 
that every person, without distinction, should have the 
protection of law ; that the laws should be so made as 
to bear as equally as possible upon all, — that there 
should be no privileged classes. 

If we read the general laws we shall find many whose 
direct object does not seem to be to protect individuals. 
Such are those concerning the laying out of roads, the 
building of bridges, the maintenance of schools. While 
these matters are acted on by the town or city or county, 
as we have seen, they also concern the larger public ; 
and so it is necessary that its will be expressed for the 
purpose of regulating these matters of public conven- 
ience and welfare. Thus we approach the relation of 
the local government to the State. If one town neglects 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 23 

to maintain good roads, not only its own people may 
suffer, but the people of adjoining towns, or of distant 
ones, who may have occasion to travel. So the local 
public is made subordinate to the larger public, the 
town or city to the State. The State Legislature says 
what the town or city, as well as what individuals, shall 
do and not do. We see that laws are made for two 
purposes, — to protect individuals, and to regulate mat- 
ters of public welfare. 

Duties of Citizens. — We have taught that the laws 
are the expression of the will of the whole people, and 
that they are for the good of all. What, then, should 
each man do about them ? Evidently, what he did in the 
local government, — try to have as good ones as possible. 
To do this, he must vote as before ; but he must do more. 
Ask the class what is necessary that the laws may pro- 
tect. They must be obeyed. Who must obey them ? 
Every one, " seeing obedience is the bond of rule." 

If we stop here we shall fail to impress a much-needed 
principle. The citizen should not only obey the laws 
himself, but he should seek to have others obey them. 
To secure this, he must show that he respects the laws 
because they express the people's will. Question the 
class as to the influence of speaking slightingly of law, 
of sympathizing with law-breakers, or of shielding them, 
or even of silence when laws are violated. Abundant 
illustrations of all three points can be found, as in con- 
nection with temperance legislation, and the treatment 
of noted criminals in some parts of the country. 

Another important principle for which our study of 
the Legislature prepares us is — 



24 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

Representation. — In studying the local government, 
we taught the pupils that all the voters should take part 
in the conduct of public affairs. This is the essential 
idea of a democracy. We have also taught that laws 
are necessary, and that this necessity is general. Now 
we may lead the class to widen the application of the 
principle, and to see that all the members of the larger 
public are under obligation to express their will in the 
making of these general laws. It will be easy, by mak- 
ing an imaginary case, to show that a direct expression 
of this will is impossible. 

Suppose all the voters of the State, some hundreds 
of thousands, should meet as in a town-meeting to dis- 
cuss measures and make laws. The pupils, if called 
upon to do it, will readily suggest the objection, — the 
difficulty of attendance due to distance, loss of time, 
expense of travel, interruption of business ; the great 
number, disorderly, unwieldy, rendering deliberation 
and wise decision impossible. 

What alternative exists ? The people of each commu- 
nity can send one or more men to express their will for 
them. These men will do what the others would do if 
they could go. They utter the people's voice, — they 
are Representatives. If the people who send them tell 
them what to do, they must do it, or decline to go. If 
they are called to act on measures concerning which 
their people have not spoken, they must endeavor to 
learn the people's will, and then to express it. 

Some may think that this is not the highest idea of a 
representative government ; but it is the American idea. 
It is what is meant by a Representative Democracy, — 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 2$ 

u a government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people.' ' 

In cities, or wherever the political system does not 
allow of direct popular vote upon questions of public 
concern, it will be necessary to introduce the idea and 
meaning of representation earlier, in connection with 
the study of the local government. But the principles 
are the same. 



26 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

Having studied how laws are made, and the princi- 
ples underlying legislation, we pass most naturally to 
the administration of justice, and show how the will 
of the people, as expressed in commands and prohibi- 
tions, is made effective in protecting individuals and 
society. We shall do best to begin with the facts near- 
est home ; that is, with the local courts, whatever they 
may be, — justices, district, or municipal. We teach 
how and for what term the judges receive their offices, 
whether appointed, as in most of the New England 
States, or elected, as in most of the other States. We 
shall find illustrations of the work of the justice in the 
local and city newspapers. Suppose a theft has been 
committed, and a man suspected of the offence. We 
observe with the class the steps that are taken, in their 
order, — the complaint, the warrant, the arrest, the 
arraignment before the justice, the plea, the evidence, 
the decision. It would be well to have copies of the 
papers used in such cases, with fictitious names in- 
serted. They can be obtained of any lawyer ; and we 
might introduce the attorney in the case described, 
and explain his work. The class will learn from such 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 2/ 

a lesson the central facts connected with the application 
of criminal law. Another function of these courts, the 
settlement of disputes, may be illustrated by taking a 
simple action of contract, as to recover wages, or an 
action of tresspass, — as for damages for crossing land. 
This will be a good place to teach the names of the 
parties to an action, and to distinguish between a civil 
action and a criminal one. 

The County. — Before proceeding to the higher 
courts, it will be necessary to study the county, — what 
it is, and its officers. The ballots last used will help us 
again. We shall find on them a list of county officers, 
varying in number in the different States. In New 
England the county officers have chiefly to do with the 
administration of justice ; but in most of the States, 
besides this, they have important functions connected 
with the support of schools, the care of the poor, and 
the levying of taxes. Selecting from the list of offices 
those belonging to the department of justice, — the 
clerk, the sheriff, the county or district attorney, and 
the county judge if elected, — we study, as before, the 
time and mode of election, and then pass to their func- 
tions. What we may call the secondary courts are con- 
stituted differently in the different States. 

The County Court. — Certain new features now pre- 
sent themselves for study. If we select for an illustra- 
tive example a criminal case, we shall be led to consider 
first the grand jury, — how chosen, and its work. The 
functions of the prosecuting attorney appear here. It 
would be well to procure a fictitious indictment, to show 
the progress of the case. Another new feature is the 



28 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

trial jury ; and we must teach how it is chosen, and illus- 
trate, if possible, by newspaper reports the important 
work which it has to perform. The papers published 
at the county seat usually contain quite full accounts of 
the empanelling of the jurors, and of the progress of the 
cases. From the same source, too, we may draw illus- 
trations of the work of this court in the trial of civil 
cases, and can compare the work of the jury in the two 
kinds of actions. We shall find certain terms of fre- 
quent occurrence, as, bail, recognizance, appeal, judg- 
ment ; and seeing the connection in which they are 
used will help the class to understand the teacher's 
explanation of them. 

The Sheriff. — If we have followed a single case of 
each kind through its successive stages, the class will 
have learned most of the duties of the sheriff, — his 
work in making arrests ; in caring for prisoners ; in at- 
tending courts ; in guarding the jury ; in carrying the 
sentence into execution. In the civil cases they will 
have seen him serving the preliminary writs, and enfor- 
cing the judgment of the lower courts by legal process. 
While I write, my eye falls upon a notice in a daily 
paper; "Sheriff's Sale." "Taken on execution, and to 
be sold at auction to satisfy a judgment." 

Probate Business. — In most of the States there is a 
special court in each county called the Probate Court, 
or Orphans' Court. The newspapers abound in notices 
by means of which all the functions of these courts may 
be explained. Such are the following : Reports of the 
session of the court and of the business transacted, wills 
proven, letters of administration granted, guardians ap- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 29 

pointed, petitions for sale of real estate allowed ; notices 
of administrators and executors publishing their ap- 
pointments, and calling for the settlement of claims 
connected with the estate ; advertisement of sales by 
administrators, executors, and guardians ; notices to 
parties interested to appear before the court to be heard 
concerning the appointment of administrators, or to 
hear the report of such officers previously appointed. 
The study of these facts will give the teacher oppor- 
tunity to make some practical suggestion concerning 
the making of wills ; and it will also furnish striking 
examples of the care which the whole people exercise 
for the weak and helpless, the widow and the orphan. 

The Supreme Court. — The highest of the State 
courts is known by different names, and is differently 
constituted in the different States. Having studied 
these facts concerning it, we pass to its work. In the 
application of law to individual cases, its processes are 
the same as in the lower courts, and will need no es- 
pecial study. But this court has a special function, — 
the interpretation of law. We may teach this most 
successfully by selecting an illustrative case from the 
volumes of court reports published in each State. They 
can be found in any lawyer's office, and the lawyer 
might help the teacher in the selection. 

For example, the laws say that the town shall keep 
the roads free from obstructions, so that they shall be 
safe for travel. In a certain town a road had been laid 
out three rods wide, but only a part of this width was 
actually in use as a travelled roadway. Persons owning 
adjoining land had piled lumber on the side of the road, 



30 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

but not in the roadway. A horse had been frightened 
by it, and a man injured. The man claimed damages 
of the town. The Supreme Court was called upon to 
decide on the meaning of the law. The decision 
was, that the road as laid out, and not merely the 
travelled roadway, must be unobstructed. Other illus- 
trative cases may be found. From these we may teach 
the use of precedent in the administration of justice, 
and show that the courts are in an important sense 
engaged in making laws, and we may teach the dis- 
tinction between statutes and this court-made law. 

Having thus discussed the facts concerning the judi- 
cial department of the State government, — the various 
courts, their officers and functions, and the steps in the 
administration of justice, we are prepared to teach the 
principles underlying them. 

Penalties. — When studying the legislative depart- 
ment, we learned that one object of laws was to keep 
people from violating the rights of others. Using illus- 
trations drawn from school- and home-life, we can by 
questions lead the pupils to see that the mere expression 
of will is not likely to control the evil-inclined, and can 
show that some penalty must be announced with the 
law. Reference to the general laws of the State will 
show that this principle is in constant application, and 
will show the nature of penalties, usually fine or impris- 
onment. Allusion might here be made to penalties in- 
flicted in former times, as whipping, burning, branding, 
the stock, and the pillory. 

Using the same familiar illustrations as before, we 
may teach the effect of the non-infliction of penalties. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 3 1 

Notable examples in public affairs are the Sunday laws, 
and those forbidding profane swearing. Though the 
laws have been made in the regular way, and the pen- 
alty affixed, because the penalty is seldom inflicted, the 
laws are violated freely. We may show, too, how the 
failure to enforce law tends to diminish the people's 
respect for all law, and so acts directly to encourage 
crime. 

Justice, Free, Speedy, and Impartial. — The pupil's 
natural sense of justice will make it easy to teach how 
justice ought to be administered. By such a simple 
illustration as the keeping back of the wages of an 
employee by an employer, we may show that if the 
laws fulfil their purpose, the wronged man should find 
redress in them. This redress should be without cost 
to him. If he must pay to recover his wages, he loses 
a part of them, and so far fails to get his due. If he is 
forced to wait long for his complaint to be heard and 
his case considered, that, too, puts him to loss, and may 
cause suffering to himself and his family. Expense 
and delay of justice affect most seriously those who 
most need the protection of law, — the poor. 

That the administration of justice should be impar- 
tial, goes without saying. The poor man's claim is to 
be allowed, not because he is poor, but because his 
claim is just. Illustrations of the violation of these 
three principles may be found and used to impress the 
lesson. It might not be out of place to direct the at- 
tention to the expense and delay now connected with 
our own system, which often deters men from pressing 
a just claim lest they spend more than they could re- 



32 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

cover. Perhaps such a discussion might bear fruit in 
the future, setting some boy to thinking how the East- 
ern simplicity could be secured, — the judge sitting 
always in the marketplace, or at the gate, ready to hear 
and decide. 

Local Administration. — How, as Blackstone says, 
justice is brought home to every man's door, should be 
impressed on the minds of the class. We have shown 
that the work of the courts is to decide on the applica- 
tion of law to individual cases. If a man is accused of 
violating law by stealing, it is for the court to decide 
whether he is guilty or innocent, and, if guilty, what 
penalty he deserves. We may lead the class to see 
that, if he is innocent, the mere suspicion of guilt is 
a hardship, and the arrest and trial still more hurtful. 
Now if, in addition to these, he be carried far from 
home, compelled to defend himself among strangers, 
and bring his witnesses from a distance, he is placed 
at a disadvantage, his vindication is rendered more diffi- 
cult, and, if secured, it will only be by an expenditure 
of much time and money. Thus the principle of free 
and speedy justice will be violated. Hence the inferior 
courts in the towns and cities are established, that jus- 
tice, by being administered near home, may be accom- 
panied by as little expense and delay as possible. 

There is also a point to be made here in connection 
with the jury system. The object of that institution is 
to secure impartiality in the administration of justice. 
A man is supposed to be judged by his equals ; that 
is, by private citizens rather than officers, men inter- 
ested in doing justice because themselves likely to need 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT 33 

justice. Whatever familiarity with the local sentiments 
and customs, whatever the man's own reputation among 
his neighbors, can do for him, he is entitled to have 
done. These advantages are secured by having all 
causes heard within the county, and tried by juries 
drawn from the county. 

Like most beneficent principles, this may work in 
two ways, — it may defeat justice. Not long ago, in 
the neighborhood of Boston, a man accused of murder 
prayed that he might be tried in another county, be- 
cause the local excitement against him was so great 
he feared an unprejudiced jury could not be found. It 
would not be difficult for teachers to find numerous 
instances where local sympathy has constantly acted in 
favor of the accused, and defeated justice. 

Presumption of Innocence. — That a man must be 
presumed innocent until proved guilty, lies at the foun- 
dation of the Anglo-Saxon administration of justice. 
In the courts of Continental Europe the opposite pre- 
sumption is held. Teachers will do well to dwell on 
this principle, and compare the English and Ameri- 
can with the Continental system. A description of the 
treatment of an accused man by a French court may 
be found in The Youth's Companion for Nov. 30, 1882. 
The nature of the proof required is important, — not 
what the witness thinks, not what he has heard some- 
one else say, but w r hat he has seen and heard and 
handled. 

Good may be done by showing the pupils how to ap- 
ply the same principle in every-day affairs, teaching 
them to withhold judgment ; not to condemn, others 



34 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

unheard ; to look for two sides to every story; to weigh 
evidence; to guard against prejudice; to reject hearsay 
testimony. Show them how cruel suspicion may be ; 
and how the happiness and the fortune of a man or 
woman or family may be blasted by the hasty judg- 
ments of neighbors and friends. The teacher in his 
own administration should exemplify these principles. 
By being just, he may promote justice, and so prepare 
his pupils for their share in the public duties of life. 

Duties of Witnesses and Court Officers. — The public 
have a right to expect that all instructors of youth will 
try to instil into the minds of their pupils " a sacred 
regard for truth." Truth nowhere else seems so sacred 
as in the administration of justice ; and the teacher will 
find here one of the best opportunities for moral instruc- 
tion. The oath of the witness to tell "the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth/' is itself im- 
pressive. By suitable illustrations, we may show how 
the whole fabric of justice, the protection of human 
rights, life, liberty, and property, rests on confidence in 
the word of witnesses, and how beneficent was the com- 
mandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." We 
may show, too, how a partial truth may mislead like a 
lie, and how the same effect may be produced by mix- 
ing truth with falsehood, — whence the requirement for 
the "whole truth," and "nothing but the truth." Hav- 
ing shown the sacredness of truth in the court room, the 
teacher may pass to a wider application of the principle, 
and show how all the business of life is based on confi- 
dence in men's word ; how soon business would cease if 
men could not trust each other. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT 35 

The duties of jurors, attorneys, and judges are also 
fruitful in moral lessons. How free from prejudice 
jurors and judges should be ! how incorruptible their 
honesty, how pure their motives ! There are examples 
enough of men who have " turned aside after lucre, and 
taken bribes, and perverted judgment," to serve as 
warnings. The true function of attorneys needs some 
explanation. They are attached to the department of 
justice to promote justice, not to thwart it. Just so 
far as they use their knowledge of law to shield the 
guilty they deserve the censure of honest men ; they 
are in league with the classes which prey upon society. 



36 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. THE CONSTITUTION. 

Facts. — If the facts and principles of the legislative 
and judicial departments have been well impressed on 
the pupils, it will be easy to lead them to see the neces- 
sity for another class of officers. The will of the people 
must not only be expressed, it must be done. The sen- 
tences of the criminal courts must be executed by the 
infliction of the prescribed penalties. The judgment 
of the courts in civil cases must be carried out for the 
protection of private rights. The measures which the 
Legislature has decided that the public welfare and 
convenience demand must be put in operation. This is 
the work of the executive department. 

The steps and the method for bringing this knowl- 
edge before the class are similar to those used in the 
study of the other departments. It is not necessary 
to discuss them in detail. The ballot will give us the. 
names of a part of the officers. In each State is a chief 
executive officer, — the governor. In some of the States 
there is a lieutenant-governor and executive council ; 
in each there is a secretary, a treasurer, and an auditor 
or comptroller. 

Besides these, each State has a large number of 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT 37 

administrative officers having the care and superinten- 
dence of the public property and institutions, — as rail- 
roads, canals, lands, prisons, asylums, schools. Much 
may be learned concerning the duties of these officers 
from the newspapers, and all teachers would do well to 
collect all newspaper articles of the kind for illustration. 

The militia of the State should be studied here as a 
part of the executive department. The children in the 
cities and large towns will be somewhat familiar with 
the organization. Those more remote from the centre 
will need more direct instruction on this point. Happily, 
the occasions showing the relation of the militia to the 
executive department are too few in any locality to 
familiarize the children with them. But the newspapers 
occasionally tell us of a military company being ordered 
out by the governor to quell a riot, or to protect prop- 
erty, or to aid an executive officer in doing his duty. 
One such case would serve to impress the point. 

Principles. — In teaching the political principles in- 
volved in the work of the executive department, it will 
be well to keep before us the twofold character of that 
work, — first, the enforcement of law for the protection 
of rights ; and second, the administration of the business 
of the State. In discussing the first, we should aim 
to show the necessity for energy, illustrating by facts 
drawn from observation and current news Hamilton's 
assertions in the Federalist, "A feeble executive im- 
plies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble 
execution is but another phrase for a bad execution ; 
and a government ill-executed, whatever it may be in 
theory, must be in practice a bad government." 



38 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

Some of the qualities which enter into this energy 
are decision, promptness, and firmness. We may show 
how compromise with criminals, as in bank-robberies, 
and vacillation in dealing with angry mobs, as in the 
Pittsburg riots, encourage crime. Impartiality, too, 
should characterize the execution of the laws. The 
executive authority should not be used to gratify the 
personal spite of the officer to whom it is intrusted. If 
he uses his power to reward his friends and punish his 
foes, he is an enemy to the public weal. 

Valuable lessons may be taught in connection with 
the purely administrative part of the government. By 
considering the large amount of money to be expended 
for the public good, we may teach the obligation of 
fidelity which rests upon these officers, — honesty in 
the care of funds and in the making of contracts, 
accuracy in the keeping of accounts, wise economy in 
expenditure. 

It would not be difficult to show that the administra- 
tive affairs of the State should be managed on the same 
principles that successful men apply in their private 
business. In the choice of employees and agents, they 
look for capacity, experience, and integrity. The dura- 
tion of service and the pay for it are in proportion to 
these. Unfortunately many of the State governments 
have been conducted on different principles, and the 
teacher will not be at a loss to find illustrations of " how 
not to do it." He should show how vicious in political 
practice is the doctrine, "To the victors belong the 
spoils," — the spoils being the offices, and the spoiled 
being the people. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT 39 

In view of the long and doubtful struggle for what is 
called " civil-service reform/' it may be well to call to 
mind the trite educational maxim : " We should put 
into the schools whatever we would have appear in the 
nation's life." If the principles of administration which 
we have stated had been taught in the schools as long 
and as faithfully as reading and writing have been, 
there would be as little discussion about them ; and 
much of the recent strain upon politicians, in the en- 
deavor to look one way and go another, would have 
been avoided. 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 

After such careful study of the facts of the local and 
State government, and the principles underlying them, 
the pupils will be prepared to study the Constitution of 
the State. They may be led to this by considering 
some of the — 

Dangers to Liberty. — Thus far the pupils have 
thought of the violation of private rights by private 
individuals, as in murder, slander, theft, trespass, etc. ; 
and they have dwelt at length upon the important func- 
tions of the government in protecting the members of 
the community from each other. Now they need to be 
shown that the government itself may violate private 
rights. 

It is best to start with some simple fact of local 
occurrence or newspaper report, as the taking of land 
for streets, railroads, or public buildings, or the arrest 
and imprisonment of a person on unfounded suspicion. 



40 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

Having presented the matter first in this way, after- 
ward history may be drawn upon for facts tending to 
establish the general principle that the possession of 
power leads to a desire for more power, and carries with 
it a tendency to abuse. Facts can be adduced to show 
that every natural right has been violated somewhere, 
at some time, by persons exercising the authority of 
government. Familiar stories from Scripture might 
be used, — the treatment of the Israelites by Pharaoh ; 
Naboth's vineyard; the mockery of justice in the trial 
of Jesus. 

All this will prepare the pupils to see that the pow- 
ers of the officers of government should be narrowly 
limited and sharply defined, and that in some way these 
officers should be made responsible for their acts. The 
substance of this need is forcibly stated by Guizot : 
" Liberties are nothing until they have become rights, 
positive rights, formally recognized and consecrated. 
Rights, even when recognized, are nothing so long as 
they are not intrenched within guaranties ; and, lastly, 
guaranties are nothing so long as they are not main- 
tained by forces independent of them in the exercise 
of their rights. Convert liberties into rights, surround 
rights by guaranties, intrust the keeping of these guar- 
anties to forces capable of maintaining them, — such 
are the successive steps in the progress toward a free 
government. " 

Safeguards of Liberty. — The Constitution may now 
be presented as the great safeguard of liberty. It be- 
comes such by its specific provisions to restrain the 
officers of the government from exercising power un- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 4 1 

wholesomely. Each of these provisions may be treated 
individually as a safeguard of liberty. Among the most 
important are the following : The limitation of the term 
of service accompanied by re-eligibility, thus giving to 
the people an opportunity to pass judgment on the offi- 
cial service ; the mutual checks intrusted to the higher 
departments ; the appropriating power to the Legisla- 
ture ; the veto power to the governor, and the power 
of determining the constitutionality of laws to the judi- 
ciary ; the specification of the powers of the executive ; 
the provision for impeachment ; the multiform efforts 
to make the administration of justice free, speedy, and 
impartial, among which are the privilege of habeas cor- 
pus ', of trial by jury, of open trial in the presence of 
witnesses, of counsel and witnesses for defence at pub- 
lic expense if necessary. 

Besides these, are the prohibitions of unwarranted 
arrest and search of persons and papers, of excessive 
bail and fines, of cruel and unusual punishments, and of 
the taking of land for public use without rendering an 
equivalent. Still other safeguards are the freedom of 
speech and of the press ; the liberty of the people to 
assemble freely to discuss public matters, to petition 
the Legislature, and to bear arms in self-defence. Para- 
mount to all others is the right of the people to amend 
the Constitution, or make a new one, whenever in their 
judgment public and private weal demand new and more 
efficient safeguards. 

Coming to the study of the Constitution in this way, 
its true nature and object can easily be made apparent. 
It reveals itself as the supreme, all-controlling expres- 



42 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

sion of that public will which we have already found 
voicing itself in a less general way in the votes of the 
town-meeting and the laws of the Legislature. 

The teacher should never content himself with pre- 
senting the articles of the Constitution and Bill of 
Rights as so many statements to be learned, but should 
aim, by a full discussion, with ample illustration, to 
show the purpose of each to aid in conserving the lib- 
erties of the people. 



THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 43 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

HISTORICAL CAUSES. 

Having completed the study of the State govern- 
ment, the pupils are prepared to study the government 
of the Union. 

The sequence of topics may be the same as in the 
previous work, — first, facts of the legislative, executive, 
and judiciary departments ; second, principles. The 
method of teaching, also, should be the same. The 
columns of a newspaper will introduce the class at once 
to the whole subject. They will there learn that there 
is a general government ; that it has a legislature of two 
branches, with familiar names ; that this body makes 
laws, with the help of committees ; that there is an 
executive head called the president; that there are ex- 
ecutive departments ; that there is a national judiciary. 
Their previous study will have made them familiar with 
the language, and they can advance rapidly. They will 
learn the nature and scope of the laws, and thus the sub- 
jects on which Congress has jurisdiction, — commerce, 
finance, postal communication, army and navy, patents, 
territory. From the same source they will learn the 
most important powers of the president. Thus they 
are prepared for a further study of principles. 



44 7/ I NTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

It is important to notice here that all the principles 
which have been taught in the earlier lessons as under- 
lying the municipal and State governments may be 
shown to underlie the general government as well. 

Just as in passing from the town to the State our 
idea of the public was broadened, while the ideas of the 
public convenience and welfare and the public will re- 
mained unchanged, so now in passing from the State to 
the nation we have, indeed, to conceive of a new public, 
broader than the old, but like that in having a will to 
express by laws for the promoting of its own conven- 
ience and welfare. Though the needs of each new pub- 
lic are different from those below, and thus the scope 
of the laws is different, yet the principles remain the 
same. So, too, the nature of office-holding is the same 
in the higher as in the lower ; and there are the same 
obligations resting on the citizens to vote, to pay taxes, 
and to respect and obey the laws. 

The representative idea is the same, at least in the 
lower branch of Congress ; and justice is administered 
in accordance with the same principles, and with the 
same sacred regard for personal rights. The executive 
functions, too, call for the same qualifications in the 
higher sphere as in the lower. All this should be 
made clear to the pupils. 

They will readily see that the establishment of a cur- 
rency, the carrying of mails, the care of harbors and 
rivers, the building of lighthouses, the disposal of na- 
tional territory, the issuing of patents and copyrights, 
are matters pertaining to the convenience of the broader 
public. But a further study of the papers will open up 



THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 45 

new lines of thought, and make a most important con- 
tribution to our stock of principles. 

Starting with the appointment of foreign ministers, 
or some diplomatic correspondence, or the building of a 
navy, we may lead to the conception that the United 
States is a nation among nations ; that it is brought 
into relation to other nations through commerce, through 
travel, through postal communication, through exchange 
of citizenship. Then it will appear that the needs of 
the citizens are not limited by the boundaries of the 
country. They need protection abroad as well as at 
home, on the ocean, and in foreign lands. These are 
needs not peculiar to towns nor to States, as such, but 
common needs of the people ; so the national govern- 
ment provides for them. 

The subject carries us farther. The nation, as a 
whole, has rights, — to its territory, its wealth, its insti- 
tutions, its independent government, its continued ex- 
istence as a nation. History teaches that nations, like 
individual men, are selfish, and little disposed to re- 
spect the rights of others. Hence the necessity of self- 
defence, of armies and navies and forts. For all this, 
too, the general government provides. Here we may 
introduce the idea of international law, — its objects, 
its sources, its peculiar nature, and its limitations. 

This brings us to another duty of the citizen. With- 
out the local and State governments he could have no 
security for person and property. Hence his duty to 
support these governments with money and influence. 
But the local and State governments cannot defend 
him unless they are themselves defended. His personal 



46 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

safety depends on their existence and weal ; but these 
are inseparably connected with the existence and weal 
of the nation. To maintain these, therefore, is a su- 
preme duty. Above the obligations to obey the laws 
and to pay taxes, is the obligation to defend the nation. 
Our pupils must be led to see that it is right, and to feel 
that it is sweet to die for one's country. 

This will crown our work in the study of political 
science. It will be worth a thousand-fold more than it 
will cost if we can send out of school a single boy, — 

" Who cares not to be great 
But as he saves or serves the State," 

During the study of the facts and principles of the 
Municipal, State, and National governments in the 
manner presented in the preceding papers of this series, 
the question will often have arisen. Why ? Why do 
we have towns and counties? Why do we have these 
officers ? and why do they bear these names, and have 
these functions ? Why do we have trial by jury and 
habeas corpus ? Why do legislatures consist of two 
bodies ? Why do we have this Constitution ? 

To answer these questions, a third division of the 
subject must be added, — thus: (1) Facts; (2) Prin- 
ciples ; (3) Causes. 

This division is historical ; and its scope may be made 
more or less extensive, according to the age and attain- 
ments of the pupils. We may obtain a partial answer 
to the question, Why ? from the study of American his- 
tory. We may find here immediate causes. Pushing 
the question farther will compel us to study English 



THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. /fl 

history. We shall find here what we may call mediate 
causes. By the newer methods of comparative study in 
history and politics, it has been shown that the infancy 
of our institutions was back in a very dim past. By 
such study of this past we may come to what we call 
remote causes; thus the topic " Causes" subdivides it- 
self into immediate, mediate, and remote. 

A few illustrations will serve to show the scope of 
this part of the study. The question may be raised, 
Why do the people of New England have town govern- 
ments, and why are these what they are ? The first 
answer is from American history. The people settled 
in communities, and therefore needed an organization 
at once. From the beginning of the colonization they 
chose local officers, and administered local affairs. The 
general government of the colonies early recognized 
these communities, soon gave them a legal existence, 
and from time to time increased and defined their pow- 
ers. It is also to be noticed that these settlers were 
dissentients from the Church of England, and there- 
fore did not give to their local organization the parish 
form, as was done in the more southern colonies. The 
civil idea predominated over the ecclesiastical from the 
beginning. So much we may include under the imme- 
diate causes. 

Pursuing the subject farther, we learn from English 
history that these people were familiar in England with 
the idea of local government. They had been accus- 
tomed to pay local rates for local purposes. The bor- 
ough and the parish were time-honored institutions. 
The Saxon tithing-man and the Norman constable were 



48 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

familiar personages. More than this, English law was 
full of terms and practices, suggesting a time when the 
local autonomy was much more complete, when the 
folk-moot — the true historical antecedent of the town- 
meeting — was in its vigor. And the language, too, 
full of tons and wichs and bys> showed how universal 
were these self-governing communities. These features 
of English life we may class under the mediate causes 
of New England towns. 

Now we go farther back, descending the ancestral 
tree, and we find the village organization in the woods 
and fens of Northern Germany. Widening our range 
of vision, we find to-day similar institutions in India 
and in Russia ; and the study of Greek and Roman 
history leads us to think that before the time of Solon 
in the one, and the Decemvirate in the other, what 
Guizot calls " the energy of local liberties " manifested 
itself much as in a rural New England town. 

So we reach the conclusion that the town is a 
survival of institutions once as widely extended as the 
branches of the Aryan stock. Antaeus-like, it took a 
new lease of life when it touched the soil of the New 
World. All these facts furnish us with the remote 
causes of the New England towns. 

Some minor features, too, assume a new dignity and 
interest in the light of this wider study. The village 
common, the " field-driver," and the " town-pound " are 
also survivals of social customs so old that within the 
historic ages " the memory of man runneth not to the 
contrary." 

In the study of the Constitution of the State we are 



THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 49 

again confronted with the question, Why ? Why do 
we find a Bill of Rights, and why are its contents just 
what they are ? We find, as before, a partial answer 
to the question in the story of our own country. Con- 
ventions formed these constitutions. These were made 
necessary by the separation of the colonies from the 
mother country, and this was brought about by British 
abuse. But these facts do not account for the contents 
of these bills. For this we must go to English history ; 
and there, in the Bill of Rights of William III., the 
Petition of Right of Charles I., and the Great Charter 
of John, we find the same rights declared and guaran- 
teed, and almost in the same words, as in our American 
constitutions. 

If we seek for the cause of these three great historic 
instruments, we must study all English history, — the 
story of Saxon liberties overthrown by Norman tyranny ; 
of the long struggle of royal prerogative against par- 
liamentary restriction ; of the fruit of the Restoration 
in the Bloody Assizes. The whole course of English his- 
tory culminates in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. 

These illustrations are sufficient to show the kind of 
work to be done under the third division of the subject. 
And they also show what should be the spirit and the 
aim of the history-teaching in the schools. History 
study is not an end in itself ; it is a means. The story 
of the past is valueless except as it serves to explain 
the present. But when used for this purpose the study 
takes on new life, and becomes invested with new and 
intense interest. 

Pupils often complain that they do not see the use 



50 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

of certain studies. In the higher schools, subjects 
should be so correlated that intelligent pupils may see 
the use of each by seeing the relation of each. In 
such a line of work the teacher would assume that pu- 
pils are intelligent, and treat them as such. Following 
the topical method, to each pupil might be assigned a 
special subject for investigation, — to one, the origin of 
the country ; to another, the origin of the dual idea in 
legislative bodies as seen in city, State, and nation ; 
to others, trial by jury, freedom of worship, the veto 
power. 

When we reach this stage of the subject, the work 
opens up wide opportunities for culture. Under proper 
direction, the students may become acquainted with his- 
torical authorities, and learn how to use them. If the 
result of the study should be presented in writing, 
the work would link itself with the language course, 
and might take the place of the dreary platitudes or 
the puerile nonsense dignified by the name " composi- 
tion." 



SUMMARY. — TOPICAL OUTLINE. 



51 



CHAPTER VII. 



SUMMARY. — TOPICAL OUTLINE. 



I. Facts. 



n. Principles. 



III. Causes. 



Of Local Gov- 
ernment. 

Of State Gov- 
ernment. 


1: 

u 

! 


What omcers chosen. 
By whom chosen. 
When and how chosen. 
For what chosen. 

Same topics. 


Of National 
Government. 


1 


Same topics. 




b. 


Public convenience and welfare. 
Public will. 


Of Local Gov - 


c. 


Nature of office-holding. 


ernment. 


d. 


Duties of citizens to vote. 


Of State Gov- 
ernment. 


L e, 
f a. 

b. 


to pay taxes. 
Public property. 
Necessity for laws. 
Natural rights. 


Legislative 
Department, 


c. 
d, 

L e, 
r a. 


Objects of laws. 

Duties of citizens, — to respect 

and obey. 
Nature of representation. 
Penalties. 


Judicial 
Department, 


b. 
c. 


Justice, free, speedy, impartial. 
Local administration. 


i 


Presumption of innocence. 
Duties of witnesses and court 




{ 


officers. 


Executive 
Department, 
The 
Constitution, 


( Execution prompt, vigorous, im- 

1 partial. 

( a. Dangers to liberty. 

( b. Safeguards of liberty. 



Immediate, — American History, 
Mediate, — English History, 
Remote, — Comparative History, 



52 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

Method. — It has been the purpose of this work to 
present an order and a method for the elementary teach- 
ing of the science of government. With this purpose 
in view, the work was made to begin with the local gov- 
ernment. In the local organization, whatever it may 
be, — town or school district, — the principles of gov- 
ernment are embodied in their simplest forms, re- 
duced to their lowest terms as it were, so that they 
may be easily seen and apprehended, — apprehended 
because seen. 

This puts the work on a scientific basis. It begins 
at the beginning ; deals first with the sensible and the 
familiar. It begins with the conditioning, and proceeds 
to the conditioned. It is practically impossible to teach 
the science of government from a study of the national 
government alone. The internal sovereignty of that 
government is so limited that it does not come suffi- 
ciently near to " men's business and bosoms.' 1 

This elementary teaching, too, should be chiefly oral 
in its character. Dealing, as it does, with real things, 
it should be the aim of the teacher to make those real 
things the object of the pupil's thought. From the 
facts which the pupils can see, the teaching should lead 
to the unseen principles ; from the majority vote in 
the town-meeting to the public will, expressing itself for 
the public good ; from the writ of habeas corpus to the 
sanctity of individual liberty. Later in the course the 
student will find in the Constitution of the United States 
the grandest embodiment of abstract principles which 
the world has ever seen. 

Helps. — The teacher should use all the helps at his 



SUMMARY. — TOPICAL OUTLINE. 53 

command to make his teaching truly objective. Among 
these helps are the following : Printed ballots used in 
the election of various officers, town, county, State, and 
nation ; copies of official documents issued by officers, 
such as the warrants for town-meetings, offers of re- 
wards, notices by health officers, assessors, town clerk, 
county commissioners, executors and administrators of 
estates ; proclamations by governors and presidents ; 
reports of town and county officers ; pamphlet copies of 
the laws passed by the Legislature ; the legislative Man- 
ual, published annually : the Congressional Directory. 
Copies of all of these can easily be procured, and should 
form a part of the school equipment, along with the 
library, the cabinet, and the apparatus. 

But more useful than all these is the newspaper. 
Here are found illustrations of all the principles which 
the teacher has to present, and descriptions of many 
things which the pupils cannot see for themselves. For 
the teaching of facts, the papers contain reports of 
town-meetings ; of nominating caucuses and conven- 
tions ; of the organization and doings of city councils, 
of legislatures, and of Congress ; of the inauguration of 
mayors, governors, and presidents ; of the proceedings 
in all the courts, including the impanelling of jurors, 
the successive steps in civil and criminal trials, and the 
execution of judgments. The papers also contain offi- 
cial advertisements, from which much may be learned. 
This is epecially true of probate business, all of which 
is advertised. 

From the report of crimes the teacher may select 
illustrations of violations of all the natural rights, — 



54 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

person, property, and liberty. The foreign news will 
often serve to throw sidelights upon our own govern- 
ment, and will furnish illustrations of principles main- 
tained or violated. 

Every teacher of civil government should be provided 
with scrapbooks in which to preserve, in an orderly 
way, all newspaper material bearing on his subject. He 
will be surprised to find how completely his field of 
labor may be covered by such excerpts. 

Books. — For the teacher's own study the following 
books are suggested, in addition to the text-books on 
the subject : The statutes of the United States and of 
the State ; Digest of Court Decisions ; Commentaries 
of Kent and Blackstone ; Bouvier's Law Dictionary; 
Story on the Constitution ; The Federalist ; Democracy 
in America, De Tocqueville ; The Nation, Mulford ; 
Municipal Law, Pomeroy ; Development of Constitutional 
Liberty, Scott ; Political Ethics, Lieber (the best) ; 
Civil Government and Self-Liberty, Lieber ; History of 
Representative Government, Guizot ; Spirit of Law, 
Montesquieu ; Delolme on the Constitution ; History of 
Federal Government, Freeman ; Introduction to Amei'ican 
Institutional History, Freeman ; The American Common- 
wealth, Bryce ; Johns Hopkins University Studies in 
Historical and Political Science (H. B. Adams, editor). 



VOTING. 55 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VOTING. 

There is little poetry in the casting of his ballot by 
the average voter. He goes to the polls with little feel- 
ing, and sometimes with less knowledge. If Whittier's 
conception of suffrage were universal, a State or Na- 
tional election would be as solemn as a cathedral ser- 
vice: — 

" Around I see 

The powers that be. 
I stand by Empire's primal springs; 

And princes meet 

In every street, 
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings ! 

Not lightly fall 

Beyond recall 
The written scrolls a breath can float; 

The crowning fact, 

The kingliest act, 
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!" 

To awaken in the minds of those who are to be 
citizens some true idea of the meaning and dignity of 
voting is a worthy ambition for any teacher. 

To vote is to express one's will concerning a measure 
or a man. In our form of government, voting directly 
upon public questions is the exception. The town- 
meetings of New England afford the best illustrations. 



56 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

The following are some of the questions which are 
brought before the people for them to discuss and 
decide : How much money shall be spent this year for 
the care of the roads, for schools, for the support of the 
poor, for police, for planting shade-trees, for decorating 
the soldiers' graves ? Shall we build the new bridge of 
wood or iron or stone, and at what cost ? Shall we 
have a high school, a public library, a new town-house, 
a new fire-engine, a soldiers' monument, a system of 
waterworks, a written town history ? Shall licenses be 
granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors ? 

These are matters of public concern. The present 
good and the future prosperity of the community de- 
pend upon the way in which these questions are decided. 
An orderly, healthy, intelligent, patriotic town, having 
a good name among sister communities, may be the 
outcome of wise action in these annual meetings. 

Further examples of the direct expression of the peo- 
ple's will concerning public measures are afforded by 
county voting upon restrictive measures in the interest 
of temperance, and by the adoption or rejection of con- 
stitutional amendments by the people of a whole State. 

Much the larger part of the voting is the choice of 
men to act for the people, — legislators to make laws, 
judges to apply them, and administrative officers to exe- 
cute them. Here, no less than in the cases mentioned 
before, there is the expression of will. What the 
chosen men do, they do not in their own name, but in 
the name of the people. If they act wisely, it shows 
that the people acted wisely in choosing them. If the 
public interests suffer through their ignorance or neg- 



VOTING. 57 

lect or self-seeking, the people have only themselves to 
blame. 

The higher the office, the wider are the interests in- 
volved, and the more potent is the ballot for good or 
evil. This is a point to be made prominent, because it is 
in human nature to magnify the near unduly. It often 
happens that men would move heaven and earth to se- 
cure the election of a favorite hog-reeve, and not care 
a button who is President of the United States. It 
is impossible to lay too much stress upon the results of 
voting on the moral and social welfare of the people, as 
well as upon their commercial and industrial interests. 

Having led the pupils thus suitably to magnify the 
function of voting, it is important to instruct them 
concerning the qualifications which voters should have 
in order that they may exercise suffrage wisely. After 
teaching the general legal qualifications as to sex, age, 
and residence, and such special ones as may exist in 
the pupil's own State, like the educational qualifica- 
tion in Massachusetts, and the property qualification in 
Rhode Island, the teacher should dwell at length upon 
the moral qualifications. 

These are primarily three, — intelligence, indepen- 
dence, and honesty. The proposition that voters should 
be intelligent seems almost self-evident ; but in view of 
the fact that hundreds of thousands of the most igno- 
rant men in our country vote at every election, it is 
necessary to impress the truth upon the students by 
discussion and illustration. 

How can men safely vote upon measures whose 
meaning and scope they do not understand ? How 



5 8 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

can they wisely choose men to offices, the duties of 
which the voters themselves do not know ? The voter 
needs not only to be generally intelligent, but he needs 
to know the plan on which our complex frame of gov- 
ernment is built ; the relation of State to Nation ; how 
the departments in each are constituted, and the duties 
of each officer. Unless he does know this, he is as 
likely to vote wrong as right, and the public interests 
must suffer just in proportion to the number of such 
wrong votes. 

The second qualification, independence, is necessary 
that the voter may preserve his own self-respect. Intel- 
ligence is necessary to independence. The ignorant 
voter is likely to be led. He is the tool by which self- 
ish and unscrupulous men accomplish their ends. But 
independent voting is not necessarily eccentric or er- 
ratic voting. The independent voter does not neces- 
sarily vote alone. He may be just as independent in 
voting with the majority as with the minority. His 
independence consists in weighing carefully the merits 
of the measures or the men before him, and then de- 
ciding according to the dictates of his own reason and 
conscience. It is not his fault if others agree with him. 

Honest voting means, first, legal voting ; but it means 
more than this. It means voting for the public good 
rather than for private ends. A sometimes votes for 
B because B is a good fellow; because he has done A 
a favor, or promises to do him one ; because A is afraid 
of him ; because they belong to the same society or 
church or party ; because A wants to " beat " some 
one else. This is not honest voting. The dishonesty 






VOTING. 59 

of it may be made to appear by showing that by every 
incompetent official chosen, by every bad law that is 
made, the public interests suffer ; that all private in- 
terests are inseparably bound up in the public weal, 
and that every member of the community has a right 
to look to every other for as full protection as it is in 
his power to give. If he fails to receive such protec- 
tion, he is defrauded. 

One more topic remains to be discussed. In political 
life, there are sins of omission as well as of commission. 
A man may do much harm to the community, and so 
to his neighbors, by wrong voting. But he may do it 
ignorantly ; and for him there is excuse. There is no 
excuse for the intelligent man who refuses or neglects 
to vote altogether. He holds an identical position with 
the man who refuses to take up arms in defence of the 
nation. He is a disloyal citizen, guilty of moral, if not 
of legal, treason. He knows that at every election the 
best interests of the people are attacked, that some of 
the most sacred principles which lie at the foundation 
of good government are jeopardized. And yet, by re- 
fusing to vote, he refuses to aid in maintaining these 
principles. He thus gives aid and comfort to the peo- 
ple's enemies. He forfeits the respect of all good citi- 
zens. 

When ignorant and wicked men vote, and intelligent 
men refuse to vote, the times are fraught with peril. 
The country is between the upper and the nether mill- 
stones. 



60 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVIC 



CHAPTER IX. 

TAXES. 

Commentators have accounted for the Jewish dis- 
like of publicans by telling us that the publican tax- 
gatherer impersonated the hated Roman rule ; that as 
the Jews saw him seated at the receipt of custom, they 
were perpetually reminded of the galling yoke of their 
political servitude. But there seems to be something 
deeper than this. In no age and in no country has the 
tax-collector been honored for his office ; and if he rep- 
resents a native rule, tax-paying is not more agreeable 
than if he collects for a foreign power. This feeling is 
not founded in ideas of right and justice. 

Many people are not conscious of receiving benefits 
from the existence of government. In orderly commu- 
nities the influence of government is like that of the 
atmosphere, — all-embracing, but silent. This in part 
explains the smuggling and tax-dodging by respected 
people. In this popular ignorance lies the necessity for 
school instruction. All teaching of civics must found 
itself upon the necessity of government and the essen- 
tial beneficence of its operations. 

Supposing the pupils have been led to know the 
work of the government in its various departments, a 
lesson on taxes would properly begin with a discussion 
of the cost of this work. Two questions would suffice 



TAXES. 6 1 

to develop the truth. For whose benefit are all these 
things, — roads and schools and police and fire-engines 
and forts and ships of war? The answer would be 
ready, For the benefit of all the people. Who should 
pay for them ? Even a child's logic would be unerring. 
The same who are benefited, — all the people. This 
would lead to a definition of taxes, as, — Money which 
the people are called on to pay to the government for 
value received in protection of life and property, and in 
the maintenance of those public institutions by which 
the people's health, convenience, and comfort are pro- 
moted. 

Having shown what taxes are, the next question to 
consider would be, By whom are they levied ? The 
answer to this will vary in different States. In the 
New England States, taxes for all local purposes are 
laid by the direct action of the legal voters of each 
town assembled in an annual town-meeting legally 
called for the purpose. This is the most perfect ex- 
ample of the people taxing themselves to be found in 
our own country, or, indeed, in any country. 

This is the town system, pure and simple. In the 
cities, the council, which consists of representatives 
chosen by the people of the city, determines the 
amount of tax, and makes the levy. 

In most of the Southern States, and in some of the 
Western ones, taxes for local purposes are levied and 
collected by county officers, there being no towns. 
This is the county system. In the other States the two 
systems are combined. Township officers have the 
charge of local affairs, determine the amount of money 



62 



HIXTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



needed, and make out lists of the taxable property. 
The taxes are levied and collected in some States by 
the county officers, and in others by the officers of the 
township. 

Taxes for the maintenance of State governments are 
levied by the legislatures of the States ; those for na- 
tional purposes, by the Congress of the United States. 
This is the American idea of taxation as expressed in 
the constitutions of the States and Nation. Taxes can 
only be levied justly by the people themselves, or by 
their representatives legally assembled. 

It would be well to call the attention of the pupils to 
the important part which this principle has played in 
the history of our country, and to make plain the watch- 
word of the Revolution, already familiar to them, " No 
taxation without representation/' 

The kinds of taxes might next be considered, the 
pupils being induced to tell what they know of the 
subject, and the teacher supplying additional informa- 
tion. The special kinds in our country are the poll-tax, 
levied in Massachusetts upon all male citizens twenty 
years old and upward ; taxes upon property, real and 
personal, assessed for State and local purposes ; the 
so-called internal-revenue taxes, assessed by the United 
States upon the manufacturers of alcoholic liquors and 
tobacco ; and duties on imported goods, also laid by 
the national government, and collected at the custom- 
houses of the country. In this connection the terms 
tariff, protectio?i y and free trade might be explained, 
and the process by which taxes of all kinds are dis- 
tributed so as to fall at last upon consumers in pro- 



TAXES. 63 

portion to the quantity and value 01 tne articles they 
consume. The importer and the domestic manufac- 
turers add the national duty or the State tax to the 
estimated cost of the goods, and fix the selling-price 
to cover the whole. The landlord does the same with 
his rents. Telegraph and express companies, water and 
gas companies, railroad companies of all kinds, apply 
the same principle, and compel their patrons to pay the 
taxes in proportion to the privileges they use. So the 
poor man pays at least his share, though he may not be 
assessed directly. 

The teaching of all these facts and principles would 
prepare the pupils for the concluding topic, — the moral 
relations of tax-paying. 

Justice requires that men should regard tax-paying 
as they regard the meeting of any obligation honestly 
incurred. If they pay for their food and clothing and 
rent, for the goods they trade in, the houses they build, 
the land they buy, the money they borrow, as a matter 
of course and cheerfully, they ought to pay for their 
share in the benefits of government in the same spirit. 

No distinction can be made between private and pub- 
lic obligations. If it is right to pay one's debts, it is 
right to pay one's taxes. If it is wrong to evade or 
neglect the one, it is at least equally wrong to neglect 
or evade the other. 

Every man is personally interested in the honesty 
of every other man. If one fails to pay his share, all 
others must pay more than their share, and by this 
excess are personally defrauded. 

Familiar forms of this kind of fraud are concealment 



6 4 



HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



of taxable property, or false statements concerning its 
amount and value, and the hiding of dutiable articles 
of ornament and dress by persons returning from for- 
eign travel. All such practices should be held up for 
reprobation. 



OFFICE-HOLDING. 6$ 



CHAPTER X. 

OFFICE-HOLDING. 

The variety of reasons urged for choosing one rather 
than another of the candidates for political office shows 
that there is much confusion of thought among voters 
about the nature of office-holding in a republic, and sug- 
gests a useful topic for school discussion. 

The subject involves three questions : For what are 
officers chosen? What is the nature of office-holding ? 
What qualifications should officers have ? Clear ideas 
upon these points are essential conditions of intelligent 
voting. 

In showing for what officers are chosen, a wide range 
of illustrations should be selected, beginning with some 
of those officers directly connected with the local admin- 
istration, passing thence in turn to the law-makers, the 
judges, and the higher executive officers of the State 
and Nation. Consider, first, the officers who have the 
care of the public highways, the country roads, and the 
city streets, known by various titles in different parts 
of the country, — surveyors or overseers of highways, 
road commissioners, superintendents of streets. The 
highways exist for the public use. They are laid out 
and maintained in order that all the people may travel 
safely and expeditiously as their social and business 
needs demand. To repair occasional defects and the 



66 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

annual waste is for the whole people to do for their own 
interest. But the whole people cannot actually do the 
work. They may say how much money shall be spent 
for the purpose ; but, except in very sparsely settled 
districts, only confusion would result from a general 
turn-out to gravel the roads or lay down pavements. 
Nor would private business prosper if neglected for this 
public purpose. It is better on every account to choose 
one man, or a few men, to do this for the whole, giving 
them authority, and holding them responsible for their 
actions. 

They are chosen to do a special work, which belongs 
to the whole to do, but which is practically impossible 
for the whole to do. The same is true of all the ad- 
ministrative officers, — school-boards, assessors of taxes, 
guardians of the poor, constables, sheriffs, supervisors of 
elections, selectmen of New England towns, and mayors 
of cities. The special work of each may be considered, 
and the impossibility of united action shown. 

Passing to the law-makers in the State and Nation, we 
shall need to show that these are chosen for a different 
purpose. Like the other officers, they are to do some- 
thing which the whole people cannot conveniently do 
themselves ; but that something is peculiar. It is to ex- 
press in a formal way what they think is for the public 
good. But while in a narrow sense the law which they 
make is only the expression of their own opinion, the 
form of our government makes it the expression of the 
will of the whole people, binding upon every individual. 
It is for this reason that we can speak of "the majesty 
of the law." 



OFFICE-HOLDING. 67 

This power to express their will in the form of law is 
the highest right of a people, and is what constitutes 
popular sovereignty. It makes ours a free people. It 
is not a light thing to delegate this power to a few 
individuals, nor is it a light thing to receive and exer- 
cise it. 

In the courts of law we find another peculiar applica- 
tion of the same principle of employing a few to do the 
work which is the right and duty of the many. The 
judges are chosen to administer justice between man 
and man, and between the whole community and the 
individual members of it. 

The whole people is interested in seeing that men are 
protected from each other, and that disputes are settled 
peaceably, rather than by force. The whole fabric of 
society rests upon an equitable administration of jus- 
tice ; and next to the making of laws, applying them 
is the most solemn duty which the people have to per- 
form. By as much as this work is higher than re- 
pairing roads and collecting taxes, by so much is the 
delegation of it to the chosen few of greater moment. 

We have left to consider the highest officers, — the 
governors of the States and the president of the Nation. 
The administrative work which they do for the people is 
chiefly in the nature of directing and overseeing others. 
Besides this, they are intrusted with the appointment 
of many minor officers, in this exercising a function 
which belongs to the whole people, but which in affairs 
so varied and extensive as those of the State and Nation 
the whole must be relieved from. But, beyond this, 
they in a peculiar way stand for the whole community 



68 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

of which they are placed at the head. In all transac- 
tions between the State and the Nation, and between 
our own and foreign nations, these men speak for the 
whole. In times of disturbance and war they wield the 
whole power of the State or Nation. To them espe- 
cially is intrusted the preservation of the public honor 
and the public life. Theirs is not the divinity which 
doth hedge a king, but the dignity of the freely chosen 
head of a great sovereign people. 

Having been taught in some such way as this what 
the various officers, low and high, are chosen to do, the 
pupils in school will be prepared to see what is the true 
nature of office-holding. Office is not a gift to be be- 
stowed upon friends for friendship's sake ; it is not a 
reward to be given for faithful services to a party or 
a cause ; it is not a right belonging equally to all, 
subject to demand, and to be exercised in frequent 
rotation until all have enjoyed its honors and its emolu- 
ments. It is a service and a trust. 

It is a service, because all the officers, from the low- 
est to the highest, are employed to do some special 
work which belongs to the whole people to do, but 
which they can more conveniently do by proxy. It is a 
trust, because each officer, in varying degree, from the 
lowest to the highest, holds for the time being some 
of the authority and power which belong to the whole 
people. This authority is intrusted to him to exercise 
in the name and for the good of the public. The 
public rule through him. 

The third point to be discussed is the proper qualifi- 
cations for office-holding. If we have shown that office- 



OFFICE-HOLDING. 69 

holding is both a service and a trust, the qualifications 
needed can easily be made apparent. For successful 
service an officer must possess intelligence and skill ; for 
exercising a trust, fidelity. In public, as in private, af- 
fairs, if a man is to be employed to do a certain work, 
two questions are always in order, both of prime impor- 
tance, — Does he know how to do the work well ? and, 
Is he honest ? 

The intelligence which is required is of two kinds, 
general and special. An ignorant man is unfit to hold 
any public office ; so is a stupid one. An active mind, 
some knowledge of public affairs gained by reading the 
newspapers, some practical knowledge of business 
affairs gained by experience, are essential qualifications 
for one who is to do business for the public. 

Besides this, there is needed some special fitness for 
the particular business intrusted to him. If two local 
officers are to be chosen, one for roads and one for 
schools, and several candidates are presented possess- 
ing equal amounts of general intelligence and business 
sagacity, the first question to be asked is, What do 
they know about roads ? What about schools ? If 
they know nothing of either, though they may be 
very good men and good citizens, they are not fit to 
hold these offices, and if chosen, the public interests 
will suffer. These interests will suffer equally if a road 
man is put in charge of the schools, or a school man 
in charge of the roads. To put the right man into the 
right place shows judicious voting. 

The teacher should show the unwisdom of choosing 
men to office for any of the following reasons : Because 



*]0 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

they want it ; because they are poor, and need the 
salary ; because they are personal friends ; because 
they belong to a certain political party or to a certain 
church ; because they live in a certain locality ; because 
they will work for our private interests ; because we wish 
to spite some one else; because we are curious to see 
what they will do ; because they cannot do much harm. 

Another qualification, skilly can only be gained by 
experience in the office. This point can be easily il- 
lustrated and enforced, and the pupils led to see the 
folly of frequently changing public officers. Compari- 
son may be made with the mode of conducting private 
business, manufacturing and commercial, where skill 
gained by years of service is recognized and rewarded. 

If public office is a public trust, unswerving integrity 
is an indispensable qualification. Fidelity to the trust 
forbids the use of the authority of the office for any of 
the following purposes : For private gain ; to reward pri- 
vate or party friends ; to gratify private malice. Fidelity 
requires that the office shall be used solely to promote 
the public interests. An honest man will so use it ; 
and no matter how insignificant the office, a man who 
does not so use it is not honest. 

Wise and faithful instruction along the lines here in- 
dicated, continued in all the schools for a generation, 
would do more to eliminate "boodle" office-holding, and 
to solve the vexed question of civil-service reform, than 
can be done by the press and pulpit and platform com- 
bined. 



ANARCHY AND LIBERTY, J I 



CHAPTER XL 

ANARCHY AND LIBERTY. 

All the important principles of civil government 
may be taught in occasional lessons suggested by cur- 
rent events of marked public interest. Such an event 
was the anarchist tragedy which culminated in the 
hanging of four men in Chicago. 

A lesson based on this event would have for its 
main object to show the necessity of government. The 
initial point of the lesson would be the word anarchist. 
What is an anarchist? The word anarchy means "with- 
out government," and describes the state of a commu- 
nity in which there is no lawful rule. An anarchist is 
a man who is an enemy of all government. 

The aim should be, not to tell the pupils, but to have 
them tell the teacher, what government does, and what 
would be the consequence of its overthrow. Perhaps 
the most obvious function of government is protecting 
life and property by its police force. 

What did the police do yesterday ? They arrested 
a burglar, a highway robber, and some pickpockets. 
They dispersed a crowd of roughs, who were beating 
a man on the street. They discovered and put out a 
fire which had been started by an incendiary. They 
saved from death from exposure a drunken man, who 
had fallen by the roadside and been left by his com- 



72 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

panions. What do the police do ? They stand between 
us and the bad men who would injure us. Bad men 
fear them. Knowing this, we walk the streets safely. 
We lay ourselves down to sleep quietly, leaving our 
houses and barns and stores, trusting that they will be 
uninjured. What would happen if there were no police, 
no officers of the law to detect crime, and no courts to 
punish it, no jails, or prisons, or scaffolds ? People 
would have to protect themselves. Men must carry 
arms, and must watch their property day and night. 
The weak would be at the mercy of the strong. Men 
would act upon 

" The simple plan 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

Violence and bloodshed would be common. What 
would result from this ? Without security for property, 
there would be no inducement to acquire it, and so no 
inducement to work and save. There would be small 
temptation for a man to have a better house or horse 
than his neighbor, for it would increase their envy and 
his peril. So there would be no improvement. Men 
would live from hand to mouth, lazy, quarrelsome. De- 
cent men would abandon such a community, and only 
the dregs would be left. 

The picture cannot be painted too dark, and the chil- 
dren can easily be led to paint it themselves. Anarchy 
is an awful word, lurid with the fires of hell. Pity 
enough that it should have been forced into our Amer- 
ican vocabulary. 



ANARCHY AND LIBERTY. 73 

. The beneficence of government may be still further 
shown by showing what it does for the public conven- 
ience and welfare. Children know that the government 
builds roads and bridges, and keeps them in repair ; it 
supports schools and libraries ; it takes care of the poor 
in almshouses, of the sick and insane in hospitals, of 
the unfortunate deaf and dumb and blind. It maintains 
fire-departments, carries the mails, and issues money. 

If anarchy should take the place of government, what 
would become of all these institutions ? No roads, no 
schools, no mails ; the poor and the unfortunate left to 
struggle for existence, or to perish. It will not be diffi- 
cult to excite in the minds of children an intense abhor- 
rence of the anarchist doctrine ; and they will prize their 
own civil institutions more highly for having thought 
what society would be without them. 

If the execution of the anarchists be dwelt upon, it 
should be shown that they were not punished for hold- 
ing their opinions, however wicked such opinions might 
be, but for inciting the murder of the police. In our 
country men may believe what they please, and may 
express their opinions freely, too, unless by so doing 
they injure others. The government comes in and 
protects those whose rights are threatened. 

Government must preserve itself for the good of all 
the people ; and the anarchists, who try to overthrow it 
by violence, or advise and urge and help others to do 
so, deserve the severest punishment. Theirs is the 
greatest possible crime. To kill a man, or many men, 
to overthrow the government by rebellion for the pur- 
pose of setting up another, are light offences compared 



74 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

with the murder of government itself for the sake of 
substituting anarchy. 

The community is so honeycombed by a maudlin sen- 
timent of sympathy for such men, that the teachers can- 
not be too earnest in impressing the truth. 

LIBERTY. 

When we hear the Chicago anarchists eulogized as 
martyrs to liberty, we are reminded of Madame Ro- 
land's famous apostrophe, "O Liberty, what crimes are 
committed in thy name ! " 

Patrick Henry exclaimed, " Give me liberty, or give 
me death ! " The preamble to the Constitution of the 
United States declares it to be one object of that in- 
strument "to secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity." 

A little boy who was riding in the park with his 
father, finding that they could not ride as fast as he 
liked because of certain police regulations, said confi- 
dentially, " If it weren't for God and the police, what a 
good time we could have, papa ! " 

Was the liberty of the anarchists and of the Reign of 
Terror the same as the liberty of the American patriots, 
— the liberty which the Constitution was made to se- 
cure ? Was it not rather the liberty of the child, too 
immature for self-control, and irked by the restraints of 
conscience and law ? 

"License they mean when they cry liberty." 

Because there are these two ideas of liberty, one false 
and one true, and because the false one is most common 



ANARCHY AND LIBERTY. 75 

among children, while there is much confusion on the 
subject among adults, it devolves upon teachers to pre- 
sent the truth, and impress upon their pupils those 
principles which are such an essential part of their 
preparation for citizenship. 

In doing this, it seems best to start from the stand- 
point of the child, and try to show what true liberty is 
by first showing what it is not. If we ask the average 
schoolboy for his definition of liberty, his answer will 
probably be, " Doinsyeraminter." Nothing could be 
better for our purpose, for it is easy to show how soon 
such freedom would involve us in catastrophe. If a 
boy has a mind to eat too much of his favorite plum- 
cake, and does as he has a mind to do, he suffers from 
a stomach-ache ; if he has a mind to go out on a frosty 
morning without his mittens, and goes, his fingers are 
nipped ; if he has a mind to venture on thin ice, and 
ventures, he has an involuntary cold bath ; if he has a 
mind to risk himself on a rotten limb, in his zeal for 
birds' eggs, and takes the risk, he gets a fall. 

By such familiar illustrations as these we may teach 
that our freedom is limited on every side by the laws of 
nature, and that true liberty does not consist in violat- 
ing these laws, but in bringing ourselves to act in ac- 
cordance with them. We may show here, too, how by 
indulgence one may lose his freedom, and become a 
slave of habit or vice, and how much more noble is the 
liberty of self-restraint, by which one becomes master of 
himself. 

The way is now prepared for teaching what civil lib- 
erty is, by teaching first the so-called natural rights of 



j6 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

men, and then showing how all these are limited in 
society. 

The idea of natural rights may be reached by consid- 
ering what a man might do if he were alone, as Robin- 
son Crusoe was on his island. What did Crusoe do ? 
He travelled freely about the island. He went around 
it and across it in all directions, choosing his own way. 
He took for his own use whatever he needed or liked, 
fruits and animals. He cut down trees, and planted such 
land as he chose. He built for himself a shelter from 
the weather, and surrounded it with a wall to protect 
himself from wild beasts and wild men, if they should 
come. 

Here we have illustrated the three comprehensive 
rights common to all men, — personal security, security 
of life and health ; personal liberty, freedom to go and 
come ; private property, the acquisition, ownership, and 
use of such things as are needed for life and health 
and comfort. 

But how if Crusoe had not been alone, if he had been 
one of a hundred men occupying the same island ? 
Could he have gone about as freely ? Could he have 
hunted everywhere, and taken for himself what he 
chose ? Could he have selected the best land, and used 
it for himself ? Here appear the limitations which so- 
ciety makes necessary. 

Crusoe may enjoy his natural rights, but he must do 
nothing to hinder the other ninety-nine from enjoying 
theirs. He may acquire property, land and houses, and 
domestic animals, and the products of the sea and the 
soil and the mine ; but he must not take other men's 






ANARCHY AND LIBERTY. J J 

property. He may walk or ride, slow or fast, east, west, 
north, or south ; but he must not go through his neigh- 
bor's house, nor trample his neighbor's crops. He may 
hunt for game, and shoot it when he finds it ; but he 
must not endanger other people's lives by his firing. 
He may remove the filth and offal from his own prem- 
ises to protect his own health, but he must not deposit 
it where it will imperil the health of some one else. 

True liberty is freedom to enjoy all one's natural 
rights, so far as he can do so without interfering with 
the rights of others. The teacher can successfully 
appeal to the pupil's own sense of justice to show him 
that this is all the liberty which it is fair for any one to 
demand ; that if one has more, some one else must have 
less. 

Reverting now to the boy's definition of liberty, — 
doing as one has a mind to do, — we may show how it 
needs to be qualified. One may do as he has a mind to 
do so long as he has not a mind to injure himself or any 
one else. This is as much liberty as all can possess. 

This is civil liberty, and it should be the teacher's 
aim to show the pupils that so much liberty as this our 
own country furnishes to the humblest and poorest of 
its people. This lesson, as indeed all such lessons, 
should be so conducted that the pupil will hardly be 
conscious that he has been taught, but will rather feel 
that he has thought out the conclusions for himself. 
This can be done by skilful questioning, and the use of 
simple and appropriate illustrations. 



78 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS, 



CHAPTER XII. 

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 

A majority of the pupils in the schools, if asked to 
name the principal cause of the American Revolution, 
will answer, "Taxation without representatiqn. ,, If 
asked what they understand the phrase to mean, most 
of them will say that the Americans objected to being 
taxed by the English government because they were 
not represented in Parliament. These pupils believe 
that the Americans desired to be so represented, and 
would have willingly paid the taxes had such represen- 
tation been granted them. 

Another idea, quite common, is that the first expe- 
rience of the colonists in tax-paying came with the 
Stamp Act. 

The text-books used are in part responsible for these 
mistakes. In many of these books the local govern- 
ments in the colonies are scarcely mentioned, and in 
none of them is the political life of the people made 
sufficiently prominent. That local affairs were man- 
aged before the Revolution just as they are managed 
now, by town officers in New England, and county 
officers in the Southern colonies ; that roads and schools 
were paid for as now, by taxes levied by the people 
themselves ; that the colonial legislatures levied taxes 
to support the courts, and to equip troops for the 



TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 79 

Indian wars, — these are facts presented, if at all, with 
too little emphasis to impress them on the minds of 
the students. 

And the matter of colonial representation in Parlia- 
ment is not always stated so as to insure accurate 
knowledge. One text-book says, "The immediate oc- 
casion of that struggle may be found in the persistence 
of the British ministry in taxing the colonies, while at 
the same time they denied them representation in Par- 
liament." The inference certainly is that the colonists 
desired representation, else how could it be denied ? 

An examination of this subject may be of service to 
some teachers of United States history. The question 
is, Did the colonists desire to be represented in Parlia- 
ment ? and if not, what did they want ? 

During the discussions that immediately preceded and 
followed the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, colonial 
representation in Parliament was advocated in news- 
papers and pamphlets on both sides of the ocean. 
Among the colonists, two persons of historic fame fa- 
vored this scheme, Benjamin Franklin and James Otis. 

In 1754, after the Albany plan of union had been re- 
jected by the British government, a new plan was 
formed, which contemplated the raising of money for 
the defence of the colonies by a colonial tax levied by 
Parliament. This plan was communicated privately by 
Governor Shirley to Dr. Franklin, who wrote to him 
three letters on the subject. In the second of these 
letters Franklin stated at length the American objec- 
tions to Parliamentary taxation. In the third letter he 
considers the subject of a union of the colonies with 



80 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

the mother country by colonial representation m Parlia- 
ment. In this letter he says, " I am of opinion that 
such a union would be very acceptable to the colonies, 
provided they had a reasonable number of representa- 
tives allowed them. ,, 

Commenting on this correspondence, the historian 
Grahame says : " When we consider how notably 
Franklin (mistaking his own view of men's interests for 
an acquaintance with their desires and opinions) mis- 
apprehended the sentiments of his countrymen in pro- 
posing a plan at Albany which they almost unanimously 
rejected, we may be justified in supposing that some 
degree of kindred error mingled with his notion of their 
willingness to submit to direct taxation by the parent 
state, on condition of being allowed to send representa- 
tives to the British House of Commons." 

The Shirley letters were not published until 1766, 
when they appeared in the London Chronicle. Before 
that time Franklin had had opportunity to learn more 
of the temper of the Parliament and of the American 
people ; and while he had not changed his mind as to 
the value of such a union, he saw that it was impracti- 
cable. This change of opinion is shown in his corre- 
spondence while residing in England as agent for the 
colonies. In a letter to Cadwallader Evans, dated 9th 
May, 1 766, he writes : " My private opinion concerning 
a union in Parliament between the two countries is that 
it would be best for the whole. But I think it will 
never be done." "The Parliament here do at present 
think too highly of themselves to admit representatives 
from us, if we should ask it ; and when they will be 



TAXATION' WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 8 1 

desirous of granting it, we shall think too highly of our- 
selves to accept it." 

In a published letter to an unknown person, dated 
Jan. 6, 1766, he writes : "The time has been when the 
colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as 
well as honor, to be permitted to send members to Par- 
liament, and would have asked for that privilege if they 
could have had the least hope of obtaining it. The 
time is now come when they are indifferent about it, 
and will probably not ask it, though they might accept 
it if offered to them ; and the time will come when 
they will certainly refuse it." The same ideas are 
expressed in a letter to Cadwallader Evans, written in 
May, 1766, and again in a letter to John Ross, written 
Dec. 13, 1767. 

The question arises here as to the time referred to 
by Franklin when in his opinion the colonies would 
have esteemed it an advantage and an honor to be rep- 
resented in Parliament. In Franklin's examination by 
the House of Commons he was asked, " Before there 
was any thought of the Stamp Act, did they wish for a 
representation in Parliament ?" To this he answered, 
"No." This limits the discussion to the period subse- 
quent to 1764. 

That Franklin was mistaken in his estimate of the 
strength of the colonial sentiment in favor of union is 
shown in the most convincing way by an expression 
from the pen of Otis, himself an advocate of the 
scheme. In a pamphlet written by Otis in 1765, en- 
titled " Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists in a 
Letter to a Noble Lord," this passage occurs: "The 



82 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

gentleman has made himself quite merry with the 
modest proposal some have made, though I find it 
generally much disliked in the colonies and thought im- 
practicable ; namely, an American representation in Par- 
liament." Here is the testimony of one of the ablest 
of its friends that the idea of representation was " gen- 
erally much disliked," and " thought impracticable." 

Samuel Adams was much nearer the popular heart 
than either Franklin or Otis, and voiced public opinion 
much more correctly. In 1765, in opposition to Otis, 
he says, " We are far, however, from desiring any repre- 
sentation there, because we think the colonies cannot 
be fully and equally represented ; and if not equally, 
then in effect not at all." In January, 1768, in a 
letter from the Province of Massachusetts to its agent 
in London, Adams, who wrote the letter, said : " Such 
are the local circumstances of the colonies, at the dis- 
tance of a thousand leagues from the metropolis and 
separated by a wide ocean, as will forever render a just 
and equal representation utterly impracticable." In 
November, 1768, Adams writes: "Americans who are 
not, and cannot be, represented there." Again, in 
1772, writing over the signature " Candidus " in the 
Boston Gazette y Adams writes : " The colonists . . . 
are through necessity, ... by means of the local dis- 
tance of their constant residence, excluded from being 
present by representatives in the British Legislature." 

It is evident that the more astute of the American 
patriots saw that, as a practical measure, it was idle to 
discuss Parliamentary representation, and that Frank- 
lin's views on the subject went to sustain Samuel 



TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 83 

Adams's assertion that Franklin was " a good philoso- 
pher, but a poor politician." 

John Adams, in his famous " Novanglus Papers," 
published in the Boston Gazette in 1774, referring to 
Franklin's Shirley letters, says : " The last of these 
propositions seems not to have been well considered, 
because an adequate representation in Parliament is 
totally impracticable." 

That Franklin himself abandoned the idea appears 
from the fact that in his conference with Dr. Fothergill 
and David Barclay, in December, 1774, among the 
terms of union which he submitted there is no mention 
of Parliamentary representation. From these utter- 
ances of individuals we turn to the voice of the people 
themselves as uttered by Provincial assemblies and the 
Colonial Congress. 

The declaratory resolves presented in Parliament 
March 9, 1764, announcing the intention of the govern- 
ment to levy a stamp-tax upon the people of the colo- 
nies, were followed by an outburst of indignant protest 
from individuals and public bodies throughout the colo- 
nies. The published utterances all contain essentially 
the same opinions and arguments. After the passage of 
the Stamp Act in 1765, there was a more formal ex- 
pression of sentiment by the colonial legislatures. Vir- 
ginia led. 

Patrick Henry introduced into the House of Bur- 
gesses a series of six resolutions, which he advocated 
in a speech famous for its fiery eloquence. Owing to 
the hasty dissolution of the Assembly by the governor, 
only four of these resolutions were entered in the 



84 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

journal ; but the whole six were published in the news- 
papers throughout the colonies as having been adopted, 
and gave form to the action of all the other colonies. 

The first three resolutions declared that the colonists 
brought from England all the privileges and immuni- 
ties of British subjects ; that the colonial charters 
guaranteed the permanence of these privileges ; that 
under the charters the regulation of taxes and internal 
police had always been vested in the colonial assembly. 
The fourth resolution was as follows : — 

"Resolved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this col- 
ony, together with his Majesty or his substitutes, have in their 
representative capacity the only exclusive right and power to lay 
taxes and imposts upon the inhabitants of this colony ; and that 
every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons 
whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, uncon- 
stitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy 
British as well as American liberty." 

Other colonies adopted similiar series of resolutions. 
The supporters of Parliamentary taxation had been 
accustomed to declare that the colonists were virtually 
represented in Parliament, as much so, indeed, as many 
of the inhabitants of Great Britain. In allusion to this 
plea, the Pennsylvania Assembly, in September, 1765, 
in a series of resolutions, declared, " That the only legal 
representatives of the inhabitants of this Province are 
the persons they annually elect to serve as members 
of the Assembly ; " and they declared further that only 
these representatives had a right to tax the inhabitants. 
Connecticut, by its House of Representatives, passed 
a resolution in almost the same words. 



TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 85 

Massachusetts went a step farther, and in October re- 
ferred explicitly to colonial representation in Parliament, 
and also rested its opposition to taxation by Parliament 
on the broad ground of the colonial charters, the Brit- 
ish Constitution, and the rights of man. The following 
are the two resolutions which bear upon this topic : — 

" Resolved, That the inhabitants of this Province are not and 
never have been represented in the Parliament of Great Britain ; 
and that such a representation there, as the subjects of Great Brit- 
ain do actually and rightfully enjoy, is impracticable for the sub- 
jects in America. 1 ' 

" Resolved, As a just conclusion from some of the foregoing 
resolutions, that all acts, made by any power whatever other than 
the General Assembly of the Province, imposing taxes on the 
inhabitants, are infringements of our inherent and unalienable 
rights as men and British subjects, and render void the most val- 
uable declarations of our charter." 

Following Massachusetts, New Jersey, in November, 
resolved : — 

" That the people of the colony are not, and from their remote 
situation cannot be, represented in the Parliament of Great Britain : 
that if the principle of taxing the colonies without their consent 
should be adopted, the people here would be subjected to taxation 
by two legislatures, a grievance unprecedented and not to be 
thought of without the greatest anxiety.'" 

Such were the individual utterances of the colonies. 
Cities and towns all over the country echoed the same 
sturdy sentirnents in resolutions and instructions to 
their representatives. But more conclusive of public 
opinion than all these, was the statement made by the 
Colonial Congress which met in New York in October, 



86 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

1765, and which contained delegates from nine of the 
colonies. This body made a Declaration of Rights in 
which occurs the following : — 

" That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local 
circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in 
Great Britain." " That the only representatives of the people of 
these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that 
no taxes ever have been, or ever, can be, constitutionally imposed 
on them but by their respective legislatures. 1 ' 

In a petition to the House of Commons the Congress 
used almost identical language : — 

11 Your petitioners further shew that the remote situation and 
other circumstances of the colonies render it impracticable that 
they should be represented but in their respective subordinate 
legislatures. 1 ' 

Equally expressive was the declaration of the First 
Continental Congress in 1774: — 

11 As the English colonists are not represented, and from their 
local and other circumstances cannot properly be represented in 
the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive 
power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where 
their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases 
of taxation and internal polity. " 

It would be a mistake to suppose that these ideas 
were new to the colonists ; that there had been no 
formal declaration of colonial rights before the Stamp 
Act evoked them in such numbers and of such vigor. 
More than a hundred years before the ringing utter- 
ances of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, the im- 
mediate descendants of the Pilgrims sounded the key- 



TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. 87 

note of colonial independence in terms most unmis- 
takeable. 

" The General Laws and Liberties of New Plymouth 
Colony, revised and published by order of the General 
Court, June, 1671," opens with the following as the 
first of its " General Fundamentals:" — 

"We, the associates of New Plymouth, coming hither as free- 
born subjects of the state of England, endowed with all and singu- 
lar the privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do enact, 
ordain, and constitute, that no act, imposition, law, or ordinance 
be made or imposed upon us at present or to come, but such as 
shall be made or imposed by consent of the body of freemen or 
associates, or their representatives legally assembled, which is ac- 
cording to the free liberties of the state of England." 

There is nothing in the pre-Revolutionary era more 
explicit or more bold than this. From all the evidence 
adduced the following facts seem to be true : — 

The colonists claimed, first, that it was a constitu- 
tional and inalienable right of English subjects to be 
taxed only with their own consent through their repre- 
sentatives freely chosen. 

Second, that, by emigrating to this country, they had 
not forfeited this right. 

Third, that the colonial assemblies were the only 
bodies in which they were represented. 

Fourth, that, on account of their distance from Eng- 
land, representation in the British Parliament was im- 
practicable and undesirable. 

Fifth, that they could legally be taxed only by their 
own assemblies. They were willing to be so taxed, and 
always had been willing. 



88 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP. 

Five hundred years of history have become crys- 
tallized in our American notion of patriotism — five 
hundred years of passionate struggles for liberty, of 
breaking chains and abolishing formulas. Oppres- 
sive forces organized into institutions, deep-rooted and 
tenacious of life, have been resisted and overcome. 
Feudalism, villanage, serfdom, chattel-slavery, and con- 
stitutional absolutism have one after another gone down 
in fight. Successively, free towns, free men, and free 
states have come into being. 

During this entire half-millennium the whole western 
world has been a militant host. Blazing across its sky, 
as the cross blazed before the army of Constantine, has 
been the legend — The Rights of Man. To secure and 
maintain these rights men have sacrificed and endured ; 
they have died by thousands, in battle, in prison, at the 
stake, and by the assassin. 

Speak of patriots, and we think of William Tell, and 
William the Silent, and Cromwell, and Lafayette, and 
Mirabeau, and Toussaint, and Bolivar, and Kossuth, 
and Garibaldi, and Washington, all men with swords 
in their hands. The common thought has found ex- 
pression in proverbs : Rebellion to tyrants is obedience 
to God ; and it has revived an ancient saying : It is 
sweet to die for one's country. 



NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP, 89 

In the opening chapter of his French Revolution 
Carlyle wrote : — 

" Borne over the Atlantic to the closing ears of Louis, king by 
the grace of God, what sounds are these ; muffled, ominous, new in 
our centuries ? Boston harbor is black with unexpected tea ; be- 
hold a Pennsylvanian congress gather ; and ere long, on Bunker 
Hill, Democracy announcing in rirle-volleys, death-winged, under 
her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is 
born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelop the whole world." 

For a hundred years to American children Bunker 
Hill has been presented as a type of patriotism in the 
concrete. A patriot is a man who loves his country, 
and is ready to die for it. Since the Civil War new 
names have been added to the list, — Lincoln and 
Grant in the North, and with precisely the same sen- 
timent, Lee and Jackson in the South. 

All our patriotic literature has the same ring — the 
songs we sing : America is a sweet land of liberty, 
"land where our fathers died;" Columbia's heroes 
"fought and bled in freedom's cause;" "in the rocket's 
red glare," and "with bombs bursting in air," the Star- 
spangled Banner "waves o'er the land of the free and 
the home of the brave." 

As a perpetual stimulus to this emotion we have put 
the flag over all our schoolhouses, and have taught our 
children to salute it. Just now we are experiencing a 
powerful revival of this sentiment. Not content with 
chanting the praises of the country's heroes, men and 
women everywhere are beginning to glory in descent 
from them. The Sons and Daughters of the Revolu- 



90 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

tion are organizing, and still more select and exclusive 
is the Society of the Colonial Wars. 

What does it all mean, and what is to be the out- 
come of it all ? is the practical question for us to con- 
sider. Here is a sentiment of tremendous power, 
wide-spread and deeply felt. Hitherto this sentiment 
has had the weakness of the old theology, which aimed 
to teach men how to die. It has been an immense 
reservoir of potential energy, waiting for foreign ag- 
gression or internal disturbance to become kinetic, but 
always waiting, anticipating, always thinking of war as 
the field for its exploits. 

Now the practical question is this : Shall this senti- 
ment of patriotism be allowed to expend itself in mere 
effervescence in Fourth of July orations and after- 
dinner speeches on battle anniversaries ; shall it con- 
tent itself with building monuments to patriots of 
the past, and garnishing their sepulchres ; shall it 
pride itself chiefly on a patriotic ancestry, — or shall 
its energy be transmuted into useful work ; shall men 
and women be ambitious to be themselves fathers and 
mothers rather than sons and daughters of revolution ; 
in a word, shall our people be willing to live for their 
country while they are waiting to die for it ? 

To bring about this change will necessitate new 
standards of patriotism, or at least more comprehen- 
sive standards. To form such standards we shall have 
to change our point of view, to get a new ttov <ttu>. We 
must move from the fifteenth century to the twentieth. 

Instead of a poor, feeble, downtrodden people strug- 
gling to become erect, we must see an independent 



NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP. 91 

nation grown rich and powerful. Instead of galling 
restrictions upon personal liberty, we must see personal 
freedom. Instead of class distinctions embodied in 
laws and customs, we must see legal social equality. 
And we must see that a great, independent nation, com- 
posed of free and equal people, will not have to meet 
again the old foes, or fight over the old battles. What- 
ever demands it makes upon the love and devotion of 
its citizens will be to meet new enemies, and will call 
for new weapons. 

When we have come to know what these new 
enemies are, we shall realize that the work of patriots 
is no longer to be done under the glamour of military 
glory, is no longer a struggle with principalities and 
powers, but with the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 

Our work, therefore, in the education of the young 
for citizenship will be three-sided. We shall need, 
first, to get beneath the manifestations of patriotic 
emotion in the past to the essential, underlying prin- 
ciples, — from the deeds to the spirit. Next we shall 
need to show what are the peculiar perils of our 
country to-day, — to discover the real enemies. And 
third, we must teach how these enemies are to be met 
and conquered ; in other words, how the old spirit must 
manifest itself under the new conditions. 

It may be easier for us than for children, but surely 
not impossible for them, to see that in all the patriotic 
deeds they have been accustomed to honor there \% 
the common element of self-sacrifice, - — a putting aside 
of personal and private interest for the- sake of the 



92 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

public weal. And it will be our task to bring to light 
the more obscure examples of this self-sacrifice, — to 
show, for instance, that the women of Boston, in giving 
up their tea, were as patriotic and as heroic as their 
husbands in feathers and paint emptying the boxes into 
the sea ; or that for the Dutch boy to sit all night stop- 
ping with his hands the leaking dike was as patriotic 
as for his ancestors to break down their dikes and 
flood their land to save it from the Spanish invaders ; 
that for Washington to leave the quiet retreat of Mt. 
Vernon to become President was a more signal exhibi- 
tion of patriotism than for him to fight the battles of 
the Revolution. 

By some such course of instruction as this, having 
brought into prominence the essential element of all 
historic patriotism ; having shown that whoever at any 
time and under any circumstances sets aside his per- 
sonal interests for public ends is doing a patriotic act ; 
that to sacrifice comfort, or time, or reputation, or 
friends, or money, or health, or life is in its essence 
patriotism, — our next step will naturally be to show 
what dangers beset our country to-day, — under what 
colors its enemies fight. 

We know too well, and it will be our business to 
teach, that our foes are of our own household, foes not 
to be met by cruisers and torpedo-boats, nor by coast 
fortifications, nor by a standing army. 

We may show that private vices may be more dan- 
gerous than foreign armies ; that idleness, intemper- 
ance, luxury, and extravagance may destroy a people, — 
that they are, so far as they exist, to-day destroying 



NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP, 93 

our people, We may show that a venal ballot tends 
to undo the work of centuries of struggle for political 
freedom through universal suffrage. We may show 
that a corrupt judiciary may throw down in a night 
all the bulwarks of civil liberty which have been set 
up through the ages. Wicked men on the bench may 
light their pipes with Magna Charta and the Bill of 
Rights and State and National constitutions. 

We may show that combinations of men for selfish 
purposes in a country as rich as ours may make and 
unmake laws, so that under the cloak of freedom and 
equality, and under the guise of laws made for the 
people and by the people, the great body of the people 
may be oppressed in person and estate. And we may 
show that, in comparison with these dangers, the bom- 
bardment of a city by a foreign fleet, or the invasion of 
a foreign army, would be light afflictions. 

In the presence of these enemies, and such as these, 
possible or actual, the new patriotism is to find reason 
for being and ample scope for exercise. If, now, we set 
ourselves to characterize a twentieth century patriot, 
we shall find that, first of all, as a foundation for every- 
thing else, there must be sound manhood, personal 
integrity, a man in whom the Beatitude has been 
fulfilled, who has hungered and thirsted after righteous- 
ness, and has been filled. 

American society has reached that stage in its de- 
velopment when from each extreme exudes a class of 
idlers, one over-dressed and over-fed, the other ragged 
and hungry, but both alike preying upon the public, 
both alike subject to the vices which idleness entails, 



94 HINTS ON TEACHING CIVICS 

one killing time by coaching and fox-hunting, the other 
by tramping on the road, one by the very contrast bait- 
ing and exasperating the other. More and more as 
time goes on we shall find our ingenuity and our effort 
taxed to limit these classes. The extreme of peril in 
popular government is reached when one of these 
classes furnishes leaders and the other voters, as in 
the later days of the Roman republic. 

All our educational forces need to be directed to the 
dignifying of labor, to building up a society which from 
top to bottom shall consist of independent, self-support- 
ing producers, whose very independence is in itself 
patriotic. 

Next, the new patriotism will recognize in a substan- 
tial way the natural obligations which grow out of the 
inter-dependence of men in society. Modern society is 
built on an industrial basis. Zigzagging through it 
from top to bottom, there runs the line which separates 
employer from employee. It is of supreme importance 
that this relation shall be one of mutual respect and 
good-will. There must enter into it on both sides the 
qualities of large-minded and large-hearted personality. 
Especially should this be true of the employing class, 
as having been specially favored by nature and circum- 
stances. 

This personality must be helpful, sympathetic, gen- 
erous, but above all things just. Fair dealing must be 
its supreme characteristic, and it must be shot through 
with the spirit of the Golden Rule. 

Here, again, we are confronted with peril. The mag- 
nitude of industrial interests has tended to eliminate the 



NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP. 95 

personal elements on both sides. The employer is no 
longer a man with a soul dealing with another man 
also with a soul, but it is a corporation, a mere body ; 
and it deals with a union, also a mere body. 

The employer's personality, and with it his personal 
responsibility to his fellow-men, has been given over to 
boards of directors, and superintendents, and foremen 
of all grades, until all sense of it has been lost. The 
employee has lost himself in the officers of his union 
and the walking delegate. Both alike have abdicated 
the throne of personal sovereignty, and have subjected 
themselves to the tyranny of their respective orders. 

The whole industrial system to-day is practically in 
the hands of irresponsible agents. No wonder there is 
trouble. Friction is inevitable ; and friction produces 
heat, and heat fire, and fire is combustion, and combus- 
tion is ruin. 

The new patriotism will penetrate to the core of this 
system, and bring back to it the sense of personal re- 
sponsibility which it has lost. Measured by the new 
standard, men who retreat behind the philosophical 
abstraction called capital, or behind the legal dummy 
called a corporation, and calmly see, or refuse to see, 
men and women and children subjected to excessive 
toil for scanty remuneration, existing, but not living ; 
who, unmoved, hear, or refuse to hear, the appeal for 
justice based on real or fancied wrongs, — such men, 
whatever else they may be called, will not be called 
patriots ; not even though they endow universities, and 
found libraries, and build churches, and contribute 
liberally to campaign funds. 



96 HfA'TS ON TEACHING CIVICS. 

The patriotic citizen in business will have intelli- 
gence enough to see that the public weal — the na- 
tional life — depends on social harmony, and that for 
such harmony he is responsible as far as his business 
relations extend, and beyond to the outermost circle of 
his personal influence, and his will will be guided by 
his intelligence. 

While the patriotic citizen will, for his country's 
sake, live up to these personal and social obligations, 
he will distinguish himself by constant and cheerful 
participation in public affairs. Our modern represen- 
tative system has weakened the sense of personal re- 
sponsibility for government. 

Too many good men are content to sell their birth- 
right of sovereignty for a mess of pottage. Not only 
are they unwilling to do their part in municipal admin- 
istration and jury duty, but they fail to meet the prime 
obligation of citizenship, to vote. They have lost the 
spirit of the fathers. In the old English parish, and in 
the chartered towns of the fifteenth century, the obliga- 
tion of personal service in public affairs was recognized 
and enforced by law. The early settlers to New Eng- 
land brought with them the same idea, and there are 
still on the statute books penalties for refusing to serve 
in certain local offices. 

The new patriotism will return to the old standards. 
It will insist that, if it is culpable to go into politics to 
serve selfish ends, it is still more culpable to stay out 
for selfish ends. If juries are packed, and so justice 
perverted ; if votes are sold, and so elections purchased ; 
if bribes are received, and so legislation is made cor- 



NEW STANDARDS OF PATRIOTIC CITIZENSHIP. 97 

rupt ; if public business is in the hands of spoilsmen, — 
the blame will be laid at the door of the good men who 
allowed it to be so. If the wolf gets into the sheep- 
fold, it is not the fault of the wolf, it is his nature ; it is 
the fault of the shepherd, whose business it was to keep 
him out, with his life if need be. 

By this standard will the patriotism of men be 
measured. Are they willing, for the public good, for 
country's sake, to sacrifice private interests, of time, 
and money, and thought, to sink partisan prejudices, 
and to unite with all other men similarly inclined in an 
alliance, offensive and defensive, for good government, 
pure government, business government ? 

Will they vote ? Will they go to caucuses ? Will 
they take municipal offices ? Will they serve on juries ? 
Will they fight the saloon interest and the gambling 
interest on their own ground? Will they fight the 
spoilsmen in their own party ? Will they demand and 
fight for it, first, last, and all the time, clean men and 
clean measures ? 

Nothing less than this will satisfy the demands of the 
new patriotism. It does not supersede the old. It 
does not cease to reverence the old. The spirit that 
rebels to-day, and declares its independence of saloon 
rule, and corporate rule, and boss rule, is the spirit of 
'76, arming itself with twentieth century weapons for a 
twentieth century conflict. 



